OnTheTrace: Tracing Our Way North

Thursday, September 18. Good breakfast at the hotel, took a little extra to get us through the day. Left town on the local bike path and had our first experience this trip with "local information." This is a term we coined on our last major trip to kindly denote that frequently information on road conditions and directions provided to you by locals proves to be only partially accurate. On the bike path we came to a "fork in the road." Rob asked two seniors which was the correct fork back to The Trace. After conferring between themselves for over a minute they concluded it was the fork to the left. Then one of them instantly confessed they had become lost just the week before on this exact spot. Rob mentally tossed a coin, we went left - which proved correct.

This day we mounted our bikes by 9:05, and arrived Kosciusko, MS at 3:45 after 60 fairly fast miles. Biked right to the Super 8, which Rob recalled booking. But upon closer inspection, he saw he had booked the Econolodge, not the Super 8 (Oops, Rob). So we retraced the last quarter mile, and still beat the rain. Oh yes, we had our first torrential downpour, after reaching our day's final destination.

It was mostly a day of uneventful travel. The Trace road surface is very smooth and the traffic was light the whole day. After skirting along Barnett Reservoir, we rode in and out of Southern Pine groves and farmland - punctuated by small Cypress swamp. The biking ended with a very slow climb into Kosciusko where we quickly showered and eat a huge (and tasty) Mexican meal. Then Diane fell into bed and was fast sleep.

To date, the mid-morning temperatures have been in the 70s with humidity in the 80-90% range. By 3:00 pm the temperature has reached 90 and the humidity around 75% (at which time Diane seriously melts).

Tomorrow we “up our game” to 70+ miles. We are hoping for slightly cooler temperatures (anything below 90) and humidity in the 60%. Fingers crossed.

Diane on the bike path, headed to the Trace.