Tupelo to Natchez, MS

Today I was having a bad day, but everything happens for a reason and we had another bizarre coincidence.(Remember, Davy Crockettt was the first one.) The brand spankin' new Best Western in Tupelo only served breakfast until 9:00. Now I know, some of you would say, what's the problem, but I think you already know how I am about mornings. So, we got downstairs at 9:00 and found...nothing. Well, I thought that's OK, because I sort of wanted to ride back over to Johnnie's diner to see Elvis and have breakfast. Then we found out, by the time we had the bikes packed to go, that breakfast there was only until 10:00...so much for that idea. We settled for a good breakfast at the IHOP down the street.

Now the part about everything happens for a reason. I went to whip out my credit card for breakfast and discovered I didn't have it. After some thought I realized I must have left it at the Texas Longhorn restaurant where we had dinner. So, fortunately we weren't waaay down the Trace miles away when I discovered the problem, but just up the street. If we had had breakfast at the hotel, I wouldn't have discovered the problem until dinner the next night in Natchez or later.

Here's the next big coincidence. I went back to the restaurant, and sure enough they had it and, after showing my ID, I got it back. When I got back outside to the bike Glenda reminded me that's the SECOND time I've done that in the last 6 months to a year. While she was lecturing me, we suddenly remembered...the last time I did it was ALSO at a Texas Longhorn restaurant, in Laurel, Md! It has only happened twice as long as I can remember, ever, and BOTH times were at a Texas Longhorn!! There has never been any hint of hanky panky connected to it, just a bizarre coincidence that both times were the same chain restaurant in two different states.

There wasn't much exciting about the Trace today, until the end. We passed a stretch of maybe 10 miles where all of the trees were snapped like toothpicks and the woods were a twisted, jumbled, mess. A sign told us it was from a tornado touch down in April, 2011. You could almost see a well-defined line at the sides of the swath between broken trees and normal trees. There was a nice overlook of the HUGE Ross Barnett Reservoir outside of Jackson, and a bunch of indian burial mounds, otherwise just 50 mph for miles, about 260 of them, from Tupelo to Natchez.

All of our excitement for the day was in the last 25 miles. We were determined to make Natchez, but it gets dark by 6:30-7:00 PM. So we had to ride the last 25 miles at dusk and in the dark, basically through the woods. Now, we've been riding a motorcycle long enough to know that's NOT a good idea. The first three deer that ran across in front of me was a warning shot across the bow. Then, a few miles later, we saw a whole HERD at the side of the road. The third encounter was a couple that were going to cross, but changed their mind and ran the other way on both sides of the road when they saw us. Glenda said it was a white knuckle ride. I was thinking it was more like playing Russian Roulette, you know the bullet is there, you just hope it doesn't come out at you.

Oct 6, 2011

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