Home Sweet COOL Home!

Day 18 - We got up at 5:00 AM and were traveling before sunrise again, but we didn't have a casino nearby to get breakfast this time.  So, we were able to get in quite a few miles in the cooler morning temperatures.  We are growing tired of the same flat terrain that we have been pedaling through for nearly a week now.  The only new land feature we saw today was a cypress tree swamp and Geri was sure she saw alligator eyes peeking up at her.  I didn't see any alligators, but I was impressed with some of the cypress tree trunks that were over 10 feet in diameter at water level.  By mid-morning we reached Greenville, MS., our first major city since West Memphis, AR.  We took a long rest break at a Hardees for lunch.  It was hard to get back out into the record breaking heat with the knowledge that we still had 20 miles to travel.  As long as we were pedaling with the air blowing over us, it was bearable, but if we stopped, it felt like we were immediately placed in an oven.  As a result, we took no rest breaks past Greenville.  We pedaled until we reached our goal for the day of Roy's Store Campground just after 2:30 PM.  We had covered nearly 60 miles and averaged just under 12 mi/hr.  The temperature was 100 degrees, so it was an easy decision to splurge on a $50 air conditioned cabin.  Unfortunately, one hour after we were comfortably settled into our room, a backhoe operator knocked the power out in the campground when he contacted a powerline.  The worker wasn't hurt, but we were afraid we were going to have to sleep in a hot cabin with no electricity and no water, since the water system was operated by an electric pump.  We were pretty frustrated at our bad luck, but speedy power company workers had the electricity restored within an hour.  We had an extremely comfortable evening in our nice cool cabin.  It's early to bed again and three more hot days of pedaling to Natchez, MS. before we can start heading north on the Natchez Trace Parkway to cooler Nashville, TN.