Cowles Mead Cemetery

 

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Dennis with the bike on the bike path through Ridgeland, MS.

I just wanted to prove that I can look as cute as Geri too!

  Day 24 - We wanted to get an early start this morning, but we had a miserable night in a hot tent and we were too tired to get up at dawn.  When we eventually tried to get the day started, a light rain kept us in the tent.  As a result, we were not pedaling until 10:00 AM.  On the bright side, it was cooler this morning and traveling was much more pleasant, at least, until it started to rain hard.  We took shelter under an inviting grand oak tree beside the road and, even with rain pouring down all around us, we barely got a drizzle on us and the bike.  The rain did not last long and we were soon traveling again on cooler, but wet roads.  Motorists remain extremely considerate, however, and they move in the far left lane when passing, so we don't get hit with road water spray.  We leap frogged historical sites one after another today and saw several old family cemeteries.  One tombstone was inscribed with the individual's birth year of 1776!  We stopped for the largest convenience store lunch I have ever eaten in my life at Raymond, MS. and we toured their visitor's center where we had the additional bonus of hearing the community string band practicing old time tunes.  We were not in top form today after the difficult time we had traveling yesterday, so when we reached Ridgeland, MS. outside of Jackson, we elected to stay at a motel rather than pedal an extra 4 miles off route to a campground.  The traffic had gotten much heavier the closer we got to Ridgeland and we appreciated a paved bike path that paralleled the Natchez Trace through town. We saw nearly 20 other cyclists on this popular trail in the short time we were on it. We only covered 54 miles today, but it felt like more due to our lingering fatigue from yesterday, but we still managed to average 10.5 mi/hr and we reached the 100 mile marker on the Natchez Trace.