Blueberry Tandem
Ride Southern Style

On September 17th we climbed up to the Parkway and then climbed some more. It felt as if we were on top of the world as we looked down into the valleys and rolling hills below. We met a German couple who were driving the route and asked them to take our picture. They were here on vacation and were enjoying the scenery as much as we were. The grade of the road became a quad busting 7% at times making 3.6 mph the top speed. Louie felt as if he were doing one never-ending track stand on The Blueberry. We took on a hitchhiker when a grasshopper, having tired from the hills, decided to hop into Louie's helmet.

At first we were jazzed about doing all this climbing. We were loving it because we got to look at all the beautiful valleys below, and because of the beautiful forest around us. After a few hours it was getting a little old, so we decided to come back down to the valley to have a much easier ride in the afternoon. After we arrived in what was called the valley the hills kept on coming. Although not as steep as on the Parkway they were just as relentless. At one point we were going both north and south, the road sign said Highway 44 North and below that Highway 67 South. We should have taken a picture of that sign.

We ended up stopping in Hillsdale which is aptly named because of the numerous rolling hills all around. We stopped at a Tastee Freeze and had a blueberry milkshake (what else!). The town was having its weekly high school football game to which everyone turned out for. It was at the bottom of a hill in a bowl like area. The band played, everyone was cheering, and it was an event we could hear and see from anywhere in town. We asked around for a campground but it was too far away to bike there before dark so we had another motel night. I wasn't complaining but Louie was a bit upset that we seemed to be camping only every other night. I thought I was doing great just to camp at all. We ended this day with 6940 feet of climbing in 6 hours and 48 minutes. We had a 9.7 average with a 46.3 max. We rode 65.8 miles.

On September 18th we started out in the early morning chill because we knew we would have lots of climbing to do. We crossed the border of Virginia into North Carolina and instantly things changed. The farms started looking more like they do in Oregon with machinery and old cars out front. Trash was piled in some yards. The roads got worse and became very narrow and rutted, but everyone was polite and went way around us. We saw tobacco plants for the first time in our lives. They are huge tropical looking green things. When harvested they are hung in these gigantic sheds to dry into a honey brown color.

A big black dog wanted my feet so badly that we clocked him doing 35 mph going down a hill as he chased us. I didn't know a dog could run that fast. At various times this day we would have packs of dogs chasing us. Seems people have 7 or 8 dogs around these parts. One dog started to chase us and an old lady came out of the house with a stick bigger than she was and chased the dog around with it. She scared her dog back in line and us too so we got out of there as fast as we could. We didn't want her chasing us down with that big ol' stick! (Everything is " big ol' " around here).

We went up and down all day long through farm areas and some forest. It was very remote and we didn't see people for long stretches of time. We saw some men who had big black beards and missing teeth. We are having more and more trouble with people understanding what we are saying. They constantly say "Oh you mean……..". I have a horrible time trying to understand the directions they give me. They say, "Go over yonder behind the electric company. When you come to the school go up the hill and turn right at the church. Go straight a while after the farm then turn at the tree." By this time I haven't a clue as to how to get anywhere. Ugh!

I was getting tired and cranky from all the climbing. It was more a mental than physical thing because the pace was just too darn slow. We crawled into Mt Jefferson RV Park for the night. We camped by a lovely pond. The bugs at night are getting louder and louder as they make noises I have never heard before. I don't even want to know what they look like, but they must be huge judging by the volume of their noise.

We had done 5590 feet of climbing in 6 hours and 23 minutes. We averaged 9.7 MPH over the 62.1 miles we traveled.

September 19th did not give us any respite from the hills. They only got worse. We would climb up one hill only to find another bigger one in front of us. I began to fantasize about places that were flat. What about Holland? That certainly was flat. Maybe we could go there next year. Little fat groundhogs, a gray brown beaver looking animal, watch us curiously as we crawl by. Mercifully the bike began to make this loud clicking noise. Thirty miles into the ride we had to stop in Boone for repairs. We found Rock and Roll sports that put in new bearings and tightened up things. The noise was better but not totally gone. I was done for so we decided to spend the night at Honey Bear campground which we naturally we had to climb up to. It was a lovely campground that was old and worn. We got a spot by a creek. We had a lovely time talking to other guests, walking around the campground, and listening to the water in the creek. We built a campfire and plotted out our next move. We had only done 32 miles this day with 3250 feet of climbing in 3 hours and 43 minutes of ride time. We averaged 8.6 mph. This was not good. My knees were also talking to me in four letter words. We still had days of hill riding until we would reach the Smokey Mountains. We only had three weeks, not three years, and there was no way my knees would do anymore climbing without at least a day of rest. We made the executive decision to rent a Uhaul and to drive over the Smokeys.

September 20th we rode 5 miles to the Uhaul place and loaded The Blueberry in the back. We had tried to get a small truck but all that could be found was a big diesel powered one. Louie learned how to drive a "big rig" that day, he's only been driving for one year. We took it up to the Parkway so we could enjoy what we were missing. It was difficult for even the truck to make some of the climbs and it overheated a few times, but better it than us, I thought. Apple trees lined the ridge. They came from the early settlers who had brought their favorite apple tree cuttings with them. We stopped at all of the overlooks and scenic areas. It was gorgeous. No clearcuts. I repeat, no clearcuts. We know they harvest trees because we had seen trucks filled with trees going both directions. We decided that all the trees being drug from the North to the South should just stay North and all the trees being drug from the South to the North should just stay South. We wondered why they were taking them both ways. Seemed weird. They should just each keep the ones they got. The Smokey Mountains are aptly named because the air looks as if it has a smoky haze over it from the moisture in the air.

We stopped at the Cherokee Indian reservation. I am not sure what I expected, but I was disappointed in what we found. There were a lot of little shops selling Indian stuff made in Taiwan. We didn't make it in time to go through the Indian museum or the Indian village. Everywhere they were selling boiled peanuts. I tried some and they tasted like boiled kidney beans. They were awful; it must be an acquired taste. I bought fried peanuts instead.

Driving through the Great Smokey Mountains we again realized that we had made the right decision, the terrain was as hilly as the Blue Ridge Parkway and there was no camping or hotels for 150 miles. On the other side of the mountain range was the city of Pigeon Forge. I had no idea such a place existed. It was a zoo of neon lights, bungee jumping, carnival type rides, hotels, casinos, and of course, Dollywood, Dolly Parton's own nightclub and resort. Dolly even had her own radio station - WDLY. I was very glad we were in the Uhaul and not on the bike. It looked like Las Vegas gone country or country gone bad. Louie thought it was probably the most exciting thing that Tennessee had to offer so it must be a good thing for Tennessee.

We drove on to Knoxville TN, home of the world's largest Disco Ball. Actually it was a hi-rise building that looked like a Disco Ball, no foolin'. We were so inspired by the carnival atmosphere of Pigeon Forge that we decided to spend the night in the Uhaul just like carnies. We parked in the lot of the place we were suppose to return the truck to, Louie slept in Grandmas attic and I slept on the floor next to Blueberry. Good plan except that when we woke up in the morning nobody came to the establishment. We found a phone book and called another place and soon discovered that the business where we stayed had closed down. Oh well, I had another first under my belt - sleeping in a Uhaul.

September 21st we headed out from Knoxville Tennessee to Dayton at around 9:00 AM. Tennessee is surprisingly filled with rolling hills and kudzu, a vine with big clover type leaves, its everywhere. It grows 1 foot a day in the summer and drapes itself over the trees, telephone poles, or for that matter anything it can stick to. The kudzu is so bad that it is killing the forests. We fantasized that you could turn kudzu into an attraction if you put big wire forms out there in the shape of animals, dinosaurs, and other objects for the Kudzu to cover.

It started to rain which made us feel better. This is our element. We ride best in the cool rain. The roads were both narrow and filled with traffic, but every vehicle gave us plenty of room. We stopped at a small store and I took off my shoes and dumped about ½ cup of water out of each gortex bootie, the source of a noticeable squishing noise with each down stroke of the pedal. I put on my other booties (neoprene ones that would not hold in the water) that I had managed to sneak into the BOB. Louie would have made me send one pair back if he had known that I brought two different pair.

The cutest thing happened down the road. We stopped to retrieve snacks from the pack and a lady across the street shooed her children outside in the rain to see the two seater. Her two little ones came out jumping up and down waving and smiling at us. It must have been the first tandem they had ever seen.

We rode past a red snake coiled up on the road. It was a copperback. They're poisonous. Thank goodness Louie steered clear of it or we surely would have had some sort of incident. Snakes terrify me.

As frequently happens in life, the misfortune of one becomes the fortune of another. We came across an accident involving two big rigs. They sprayed down the oil with foam and were trying to figure out what to do with what was left of the truck and it's tank. The road was closed and autos were made to take a 15-mile detour. We talked the local cop into letting us walk The Blueberry around the area and off we went with the whole road to ourselves for miles, but not before the cop warned us to be careful out there. It seems everyone we met believes we are going to become road kill at some point on this ride. They all feel the danger much more than we do. We probably have no good sense, but we are having the time of our lives.

We took a scenic side trip on a boardwalk and sidewalk that wound around the Tennessee River, a much bigger river than we ever imagined. We came up out of the trail into a parking lot to see an old Fort and a flock of geese which we frightened into going every which way all around us honking loudly in dismay. We found our way back to the road and were joined by a deer. The deer ran along with us with huge leaps and bounds for about ¼ mile. Spectacular! We have been joined in the past by horses, dogs, sometimes cattle, but never a deer.

Biscuits. I really like biscuits. We are having them every day now at least twice a day. If I don't finish them at my meal I pack them up to eat later. They are really very tasty. Consequently they must be loaded with fat and calories, but I am on vacation so I make the choice not to think about it. I am looking for blueberry biscuits but have yet to find biscuits in flavors other than cinnamon ones that look like cinnamon rolls. We keep looking for blue food at every restaurant; today we found some blueberry bagels at the Courthouse Café across from the cutest little courthouse in miniature we have ever seen.

We came across a graphite nuclear reactor and traveled for a long way on the evacuation route. I am not sure if that made me feel better or worse. Surely anything that needs an evacuation route cannot be a good thing.

Louie suddenly stops the tandem and says, "OK, now which way?" I cannot figure out what he is talking about until he points to a fork in the road, the kind that you eat with, Wise guy!

Since I had spent the last night in the Uhaul and was dripping wet from the rain I begged for a motel and got it. Louie rode the Blueberry directly into my room, parked it and that was that for me!

We ended the day with 85.4 miles in 6.05 hours with a 14.3 average and a 43.7-MPH max. It was our best day yet. All we needed was to get a little wet and we felt right at home.

We woke up on the 22nd of September thinking that we would cross over to the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. We were at breakfast eating our biscuits when some folks started conversation with us. The locals said we should continue on down to Alabama and cross over to the trace there because the roads were better and there were fewer hills, we took their advice. As we left the restaurant, we got to see our second accident of the ride. A lady with a red car backed up into a pickup truck. It didn't hurt the truck much that we could tell because it was all dented up already and the Lady's car had a broken taillight in exactly same place that hit the truck. Since it looked like they both had vast experience in the field of car crunching we left them to they're own devices and set off down the road past another nuclear power plant. This one was the Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant. Again we rode along the evacuation route. Ugh!

We ended up riding on down into Chattanooga, Tennessee. The road we were on spit us out into the middle, yes middle, of a freeway all of a sudden with trucks and cars merging in on both sides going 70 MPH. Yeowwwww!!. This was interesting. We tried to get over to the right for the longest time. It seemed as if we were finally going to make everyone's fears come true and turn into road kill. We wanted nothing more than to get off, but I could see that we had to stay on the road until we crossed the Tennessee River. Louie finally managed to get us over to the right, but that was very little help since the right lane was narrow and had no shoulder. As we were rounding this corner I was saying my prayers. Kapow! We hit the biggest bridge gap ever. We were very thankful for the heavy Rhino rims we were riding. It they had been the Mavics they would have been flattened for sure. Lucky for us, there was an exit right after the bridge. One more massive bridge gap and we were over the bridge, off the exit and right into downtown Chattanooga.

I needed a rest after that so we stopped for lunch at a downtown café. Louie and I split a huge sandwich and I had my first latte' since leaving Portland. It was a good thing we rested because we had a long climb out of Chattanooga. We rode part of the Choo Choo scenic route, but I keep getting lost and ended up asking a woman at a Kidney dialysis place if I could both use their bathroom and get directions. I thought it would be flat along the Tennessee River Scenic Route, but now I'm learning that anything labeled "scenic route" goes up hill. We climbed hills for over two hours before we turned west in Alabama.

We are riding along and I am day dreaming on the back of the Blueberry, all at once Louie shouts, "Whoa! Big Money!" and stops the bike. I should have known it was going to be a silly stunt because next thing I know he hops off the bike, runs back a few feet, and picks up a metal license plate that looks like a $100 bill. Well, he was right, it was big money! He decides it is worth its weight so now it has joined us on the BOB. At the next store we stop at Louie takes a bag of chips and a drink to the cashier, he asks they lady if she can break a $100. The cashier thinks he is serious until he slaps the metal $100 bill on the counter. We all laughed; she liked it so much we let her keep the big money.

On Hwy 70 in Alabama we see signs dedicating the road as the Trail of Tears Corridor. As a result of the Indian removal act of 1830, 15,000 Cherokee and members of other tribes were put in stockades at Tennessee, then forced to walk in the fall and winter to a reservation in Oklahoma. 4000 Indians died in that journey. Louie is part Cherokee, his mother is from Oklahoma.

We had just rode over 100 miles, all the towns were very small and we couldn't find a campground or a motel. We rode past a bike shop, turned around and came back to ask the owner if we could camp in the lot next to his shop. Surprise, he let us. The shop; J.C.'s Bicycle Repair had a couple hundred of old bikes half of them were rusting away in the field behind the store, the rest were in limbo waiting to be repaired for re-sale. J.C. had about thirty bikes ready to sell from $25 and up. Louie found an old bike light and an antique headbadge for a friend, he charged him $15 for the stuff, which seemed like a lot for rusty old bike junk. J.C. showed us where we could camp and told us that he would call the local sheriff so that he wouldn't come roust us. We ate dinner at a small restaurant next door, eating fried pork chops, french fries, and biscuits (what else). I am thinking that my arteries will clog long before we become road kill if I keep eating like this. The restaurant let us use their bathrooms to clean up in and kept them open all night.

We tucked ourselves in for the night under the stars next to J.C.'s bike shop. All was good until Louie woke up staring into the eyes of a little skunk that had been curious as to who was invading his lot. Louie whispered my name after the little guy started to run away. Thank goodness. We didn't need skunk spray added to the sweat of riding all day!

We ended the day with 102.5 miles in 7 hours and 10 minutes. We averaged 14.3 mph with 4320 feet of climbing and a 51.5 max speed.

We woke up September 23rd to 44 degrees. Brrrrr! We ate biscuits at Jack's restaurant, then went to the post office to send back the bike junk Louie bought and a few more items we didn't need. The guy who waited on me in the post office was enamoured with my helmet. He called over his buddy to examine it. Come to find out his buddy who rides his bike a few miles to work each day would not wear a helmet, then I got hear the story about how he fell off his bike and cracked open his noggin. They both agreed it was a cool helmet and the guy with the cracked noggin said that he finally had bought one and wouldn't ride without it.

It warmed up quickly to 93 degrees. Amid all the high fat food restaurants we found this wonderful vegetarian fast food place, The Burger Factory. Home of The Parker Burger, they were delicious. I had collard greens and cornbread with mine. It seems the guy owned a place just like it in Seattle Washington, but moved it to Huntsville, Alabama, to be with his son who was going to college there. How many other parents would have done that!

We left lunch and tried to hunt down some sunscreen. One store and a pharmacy told us they had sent it all back. Seems it is a seasonal thing in the south and once the season is over it goes off the shelves. We decide we will look again another day and squeeze the last out of the bottle we have. Louie sees another snake on the road and kindly does not tell me again until we are past it. It looked like a rattlesnake to him, but he is not sure. I don't want to know about it.

We meet up with three of the cutest little boys. Two were round cherub looking brothers. The other had flaming red hair. Red said that I talked funny and he couldn't understand me. I told him it was because I was from Portland Oregon. He didn't have a clue as to what I meant. He asked if we came from up yonder. I told him it was way up yonder, in fact more yonder than he could imagine. He just scratched his head and repeated - up yonder? We sat them on the bike and took a picture. Louie fixed Red's bike; as best he could with no parts available. They asked how we managed to ride a bike for two - who does what? I told them that Louie is the captain and has to tell me what to do and I do it. So when we got on the bike, Red turns to Louie and says in all seriousness, "Now you all tell her what to do ya hear." Then he looks at me and says, "And I want to see you do it". Off we went. I made sure I did what Louie said!

We had our first run in with a trucker. The bozo bumped his truck right up against the Bob at a stoplight. I turned and looked at the guy but he just glared at me. Clearly he did not want us there for whatever reason. When the light changed, he pulled alongside us very slowly and began to inch us over closer to the edge of the road trying to run us off. Louie held our course and we barely managed to stay on the road. We could not figure out what this guy's problem was. We only took up two feet on the road and he had all the rest. We were wishing very naughty things like for a can of spray paint to have used on the side of his nice white truck. Bad Becky. That would have only made it worse I am sure, but it did not stop me from day dreaming about doing that to the next bozo.

As we rode into Florence, there was a huge traffic jam on the other side of the road going the other way. Everyone was staring at us so I began to wave at them and they all waved and smiled back at us. A car full of teenagers buzzed past us and said something out their window. They turned around and came back at us yelling again from the other side of the road. Next thing we know they are passing us from behind again yelling more. We never could figure out what they were yelling, but they were not trying to hit us so it must have been friendly.

We were so tired that we decided to hotel it again at a Hampton Inn. They put the Blueberry in a meeting room because our room was on the fourth floor.

We ended the day with 104.8 miles in 7 hours and 21 minutes with an average of 14.2. We had done 3,500 feet of climbing.

In the morning both the managers came out and chatted with us about where we were going and where we had come from and how we were doing it. We got an all you can eat breakfast buffet at the hotel, which is a wrong thing for them to provide to two hungry cyclists. I packed, much to Louie's chagrin, a whole bunch of stuff into the bike bags, including blueberry pop tarts and biscuits. We had ridden over 200 miles in two days. We needed food!

September 24th we set out for Tishomingo State Park in Mississippi. We tried to get an early start but did not get our act together until 8:00 AM. We were very close to the Trace and set out to find it. Waterloo Road was not where it was on the map. We stopped to ask this young man where it was, but this very small lady was just giving him hell. We could not understand was she was yelling at him, but he must have done something terrible for her to carry on that way. He just ignored her and told us where we needed to go to find Waterloo. The lady continued to give him hell as we rode off to our Waterloo, which turned out to be 1 block away.

Seems that everywhere in the South there are these small independent gas stations with at least 4 or 5 men sitting out front watching the world go by. We stopped and chatted with a group of them and they told us all about the Trace. We told them all about our trip.

Our first stop after finding the Trace was the Visitor's Center. Here we met up with this big Alabama Cop who was very interested in the bike. We also told him about our trucker friend who had tried to run us off the road. His whole face lit up and he said, "Little lady, don't you worry. I live to get guys like that. I may not get your guy, but I will get the next one and he will have your name on him. That is the part of my job I love the best. So when you are out there riding just think about this big ol' Alabama cop out there making those roads safe". I felt much better.

We crossed the Tennessee River and were surprised by its size because it is much wider than the Columbia! We saw a lot of deer and a baby fawn. We stopped at an overlook and could see no clear cuts, though we know they cut the trees down. By the time we got to the highest point on the trace in Alabama we were hot and tired. We stopped at an Indian mound that the Indians had used as a temple and burial mound some 8,000 years ago. We stopped at Bear Creek Cave. We ignored the Danger sign and went down into the cave, it was cool inside and there was a pond from a spring that Indians used for a water source. Ripples from the water echoed strangely when we through rocks in it. Neither of us wanted to come out. We wanted to jump in, but there was a lot of deep mud at the bank of the pond. After coming out we asked a couple who were riding a three wheeled Honda Gold Wing motorcycle with a trailer if we could trade with them, but they would have nothing to do with tandems.

We found Tishomingo Park, but we had to ride into town to get food. Louie did post cards while I alternately entertained the locals and napped in the shade. After getting back to camp Louie had to forage for cooking oil from the other campers. He visited a couple driving a motor home. They were camping and doing day rides as they go. They had tons of biking maps all organized for all the different states. We thought about doing the same thing with the van but opted for the all bike tour instead.

Louie has had experience with woodland creatures getting his food on previous camping trips so we put all the food in a bag and hung it from a tree. After the sun set we noticed these little frogs everywhere. We chased them trying to catch them. I was not sure that I could sleep with little frogs hopping all over me. I decided to sleep next to the Blueberry, which was leaning against a tree, and Louie opted for under the hanging bag of food. I was peacefully sleeping when I heard Louie shout, "Get away. Shoo!" . Louie had seen little animals scurrying about and next thing he knew one was coming directly for him. When he shouted at it, it ran away. Seems we were surrounded by a pack of coyotes. They yapped and yipped for a long time as they ran around the lake. Louie gets all the fun. First it is a skunk and now it is coyotes. He says they leave me alone because my snoring scares them away. Humph!

We ended the day with 57.3 miles, a 38.3 max, an 11-mph average, and 2280 feet of climbing in 5 hours and 12 minutes.

Louie broke camp at 7:00 AM on September 25th. Seems the coyotes kept him awake most of the night. I had gone right back to sleep, no problem.

We followed the Natchez Trace to the Confederate Soldier's Graves where 13 unknown soldiers were buried with headstones and all. They face the old original Trace to protect all who travel there. We could still see the mounds where their bodies lay.

We stopped at a Visitor's Center and saw a movie about the Trace. It was the first national highway. Louie sent off 8 post cards while I took a nap in a chair. We passed an adventure group of young boys who were riding the trace north; they did not look happy. They were ill equipped. The kids were wearing jeans and riding mountain bikes with knobbies on them. When we rode by waving and smiling they didn't wave back. We had just finished a three-hour break during the hottest part of the day and they were doing a death ride. We also talked to a man who was doing a school project with his son, some kind of history project about the Trace, it looked like Dad was doing all the work.

We left the Visitor's Center and went to Tupelo to get some food. It was only a few hundred feet off the trace and a fairly good-sized town but you never would have known it while you were on the Trace. On our way into town someone threw a plastic pop bottle at us, our second incidence of road rage. We passed a creek and startled a whole gaggle of turtles that made a beeline for the water - big splash! They were so cute. We started looking for them at all the creeks now.

We finally got rid of the click in The Blueberry. Yesterday, Louie kept stopping and oiling this and that to get rid of it, but to no avail. Today it finally quit. The oil must have gotten down into something.

We came across a lady with a flat tire. She had plenty of help so we didn't have to do anything except ask her to snap our picture so we could have one of us riding the Trace.

We keep seeing a lot of dead armadillos along side the road. When an armadillo sees a car they must think, "I've got armor!" and curl up in a ball. We found out later they were brought here to eat the fire ants. We also see tons of kudzu growing up and over all the trees, choking them out.

We are starting to feel the sad history of the south. Everything that we see has to do with the removal of the Indians or the civil war. It's depressing.

We ended the day at Witch Dance having done 76.6 miles in 6 hours and 26 minutes. We averaged 11.9 with a 36.8 max and 2,380 feet of climbing.

September 25th we set out for Jackson, 135 miles away. We don't know if we will make it but we are going to give it our best shot. It is going to be a push.

We found a preserved section of the original Natchez Trace. This trail was made by the Natches Indians over hundreds of years. Then it was used by fur trappers who traveled north after rafting down the Mississippi river with their bounty. Finally it was cleared to ten feet wide by the army in 1800 for use as a postal route, making this the oldest national highway. We rode the Blueberry to the end of the section and back. I could feel the vibrations of the people who had rode and walked this same trail many years ago. The Natchez Trace was abandoned by 1830 with the advent of steam powered riverboats that could travel north up the Mississippi river.

I saw my first wild turkeys; ugly looking birds thinner than their tame counterparts, today. We also saw the biggest red bug we have ever seen in our lives crossing the road. We are not sure what is was and I don't think I want to know. I decided to pretend as if I never saw it because some things I am just better off not knowing about. Big gigantic spiders make these wonderful huge webs between the road and the trees. I would not want to walk into one.

We made friends with a big red dog in French Camp. He wanted to come with us. As we were playing with him a woman stopped her car to say she had seen us for 2 days and was wondering where we came from and where we were going and how we could ride so far each day.

The chip seal on the Trace has worn the rear tire down to cords. We had 3 flats today, had to use the folding tire. We are going to have to get another tire first chance we get.

Night came and the stars came out. It has been a while since I have seen so many stars. It was beautiful. Then a big orange moon came peaking up and drowned out all the stars. We thought we would need some moon screen or that we would get a moon burn it was so bright. It glistened off a lake as we rode on. I felt as if we were suspended in time. We rode on by the light of the moon with Armadillos being the only thing weighing on our minds, as we did not want to run over one. About the same time we were discussing this issue a car ran over one. They sort of pop when they are run over, yucky.

As we got near Jackson the trace ended it followed a large reservoir for miles. The moon glistened on the water and we enjoyed the cool night air as we approached the city. At the very end of the trace we were detoured right onto the freeway. We made a run for a Comfort Inn by going around a divider and the wrong way up a street but we didn't care. We were ready to be done. We had rode 134.9 miles in 10 hours and 11 minutes. We had a 13.3 average and a 38.2 max with 2580 feet of climbing.

After settling in we took a cab to the Time Out, the only place open where I could get food and Louie could get a much-deserved beer. I had a fried pickle. They will fry anything in the South!

We woke up on September 27th to Love Bugs everywhere. These are little black bugs that swarm all over the place. They only live for three days and while they are alive their only interest is to make other love bugs. So they are mating like crazy. When it is hot they get hot. They get in your hair, your mouth, all over everything. We both refused to ride under these conditions so we opt for the Uhaul again.

We rode across the Ross Barnett Reservoir spillway to get to the Uhaul place and that was bad enough. It had a good shoulder and it was a little cooler than the surrounding area but it was still very hot and bugs were everywhere.

As we were traveling along in the Uhaul we came across a young man who had it all solved. He was sitting on his handlebars, facing backwards, pedaling, and riding forwards. The bugs were hitting his back rather than getting in his mouth. Quite clever, though I am not sure how he knew where he was going. He didn't fall down while we watched him and seemed to stay on the road so he must have had quite a bit of practice.

The roads from Jackson to Baton Rouge were terrible. People drove like maniacs. The speed limit was 70 mph on roads that had traffic lights on them so it was speed up very fast and then lay on the brakes. The roads were wavy and had big potholes and cracks, but that did not seem to slow anyone down. My goodness.

We decided to do the motel thing in Baton Rouge because it was just too hot to camp. We found a place that was only a few hundred feet from the river and close enough to town to ride around on the bike. Baton Rouge is different from all the other towns we had seen. We do not see any McDonalds, and strip malls. It had floating casinos on the Mississippi and a cute little river walk. We went in the Maritime Museum and saw all kinds of intricate model ships. I am not sure who built them but it must have taken a lifetime because they had every single detail perfect on them. We visited a small market that when Louie asked for eggs they dug them out and put them in a sack for him rather than putting them in an egg carton. We rode the bike through Spanish town and through the College area. We saw the cutest little homes and then a few large mansion type homes as well.

We ended this day with 15.2 miles on the bike, a 9.1 average, with one hour and 38 minutes ride time, 25.3 max and 380 feet of climbing.

We started the 28th of September with a trip to the floating casino. We each got $5 in quarters to bet. I won back $1.50 and Louie won back $2.75. We decided that even though we were both winners we were losers and that was the way Casinos like it so we quit our gambling spree and set about watching others. We could not believe how people stood there with buckets of quarters and just fed the machines. We wanted to do the river boat cruise but they had cancelled it because they thought it would rain and they do not go out in the rain.

After leaving the riverboat we came across a person we had spoken to the night before. He was sleeping on the levee. There are many poor people in the area.

We visited a park that had the Governor's mansion on its edge, right on the side of a little lake. It is quite ornate in a southern style right down to the rocking chairs on the porch and big white columns. There are beautiful flowers and songbirds all around. Moss, looking like green lace, hangs from the trees. We went into an arsenal museum and saw how they stored the gunpowder in barrels with charcoal kept in the basement to absorb moisture. There is a big Indian mound near which we climbed and looked down on the city and up to the capitol building, a large needle of a building that is supposedly the tallest capital building in the US.

We dropped off the Uhaul and set out. The roads continued to be terribly bumpy with sugar cane spilled all over the shoulders. I picked up a piece, peeled back the outer layer and bit into the cane, which was very sweet. What they do is burn the leaves off the cane, harvest it, cut it up into small pieces, and put it into these trucks. As we rode past the harvesting the air smelled like caramel. Trucks filled with the cane would pass us every five minutes; the drivers of the cane trucks honked wildly as they passed while the tanker trucks filled with propane would give us plenty of room. We passed several cane processing plants. They were huge factories that smelled like garbage dumps.

We stopped in Plaquemine and looked at an old lock that was all blocked off. It looked like at one point in time they had used it to bring in boats, but now it was just historical. They had many old historical buildings and museums there that I wish we had time to go through.

We rode the Blueberry on top of the Mississippi River Levee, looking down on all the sugar cane and the river. It was very peaceful. Everywhere we went the people were wonderful and wanted to know where we were going, where we had come from, and how we could do it. Along one stretch people must have called ahead to their neighbors because whole families, kids and all, were lining the road waving and calling to us. We felt like celebrities. We stopped in one place for fried chicken and a person there said he had seen us down the road and could not believe how far we had come in such a short time. While we were eating a group of kids surrounded the blueberry looking it over from top to bottom.

As we continued rain spat at us to cool us down and dampen the road. Louie is an excellent captain and has saved us from destruction many a time, so we are not sure what happened next. We were riding along about 15 mph, nothing in our way, nothing unusual except wet pavement and, whoops, down we went, sliding for about 10 feet. We both managed to tuck under the bike as we should but my left knee hit the drag brake lever and got a gash. Other than wounded pride, my cut knee, and my bruised butt, we were fine. We still do not know what happened, perhaps the Bob went off the edge of the road and pulled us down or the white line got slick.

Apparently the crash gave Louie a burst of energy because we took off at breakneck speed. We saw some huge plantations set back among the trees. We were then treated to a light show of lightening off in the distance. I was getting tired and wanted to stop but Louie was having a great time riding so on we went past a plantation bed and breakfast that looked so inviting. Eventually we stopped in Vicksburg to find a place to stay but there was none. A friendly man at the mini mart offered to take us back to the plantation so I jumped on it and into his pickup truck. We ended up staying at a plantation in what is called "the little house". Every room had a different theme. It turned out to be the fanciest place we had stayed on the whole ride.

We ended the day with 57.1 miles in 4 hours and 35 minutes. We averaged 12.4 mph with a 29.4 max and only 280 feet of climbing.

Our last day of riding, September 29th, began with a tailwind that was a relief after having had a headwind for several days. It rained, but the rain again helped cool us down. I was having a terrible day because I could not get comfortable on the saddle. My poor bottom felt bruised wherever it contacted the saddle. I tried to spend a lot of time standing but it didn't seem to help. The road was only busy in sections so that was fine even though we still had to contend with the sugar cane trucks. We had one fright where a car and a cane truck were coming towards us each taking up a lane. It looked like the truck wanted to pass the car but the car was speeding up not letting the truck pass. Louie stopped The Blueberry and we leaned up against a mailbox as the vehicles went past almost blowing us over. We do not know if the truck managed to pass the car or if he had a head on wreck with anyone, but it sure was frightening to us.

We saw another nuclear power plant and many chemical plants. They had massive pipe structures that went over the road to the river. I could not imagine why they needed these pipe buildings, but I was sure glad none of them leaked. It looked to me like whatever was in the pipes would not be good for me. We rode through the shipyards seeing very large gigantic ships in repair or construction. One whole town, Bridgetown, seemed totally dedicated to the workers. We rode past a storage area where large pieces of metal were rusting in the sun. Louie loved it, as it was the ultimate in roadside garbage, which he inspects to keep himself entertained on long rides. He says he knows when he is coming to towns and knows about the people in the towns by what type of roadside garbage he sees. It is sort of a sociological study thing for him.

We rode the ferry across the Mississippi because the bridges were not designed for bikes or pedestrians. It took four big men to help us get The Blueberry on the ferry because we had to take it through some turnstiles not designed for tandems with trailers. The same burly guys helped us get it off. We were standing on the dock looking at the map when an old guy on a single speed bike asked us where we were going. When we told him, he said he would take us there. He proceeds to take us through "the projects". It was such a poor area. The buildings looked like army barracks with broken windows and all. The people were mostly minorities and women, children and teenagers. The kids all ran around the bike. Our guide proceeded to tell us that he had just gotten out of jail! There was nothing else we could do but follow him! He led us almost to the door of the hostel where we were to stay. Whew! We made it through that one safely.

The hostel was built in 1852 by a man named Longpre and is on the edge of the garden district. It has 14 rooms. The owner lives next door and bought it to make a place for travelers and young people to stay since he had traveled extensively and enjoyed staying in hostels. Everything was fine until I saw the biggest cockroach ever crawling about. I called to Louie to do something about it. He said okay, and came over and took its picture. That wasn't exactly what I had in mind so I handed him my shoe and he smashed it. Yuck! They must be quite common there because I was the only one bothered by it.

We saw quite a few people on bikes most of which were single speed cruisers. Why would you need gears in someplace so flat! We visited Bourbon Street where you can get anything you might believe you want and some things you know you don't want. People walk around with beer and drinks in plastic cups. Women flash people on balconies and get beads tossed down to them. Music pours out of the bars. We went into a voodoo store. I couldn't think of anyone that I wanted to stick pins into, so I didn't buy anything. We visited the graveyards where they bury the people in these elaborate tombs above the ground. We visited the French market, which sold all types of food from alligator to frog's legs.

Our last day of riding was 57.7 miles, 12 mph average with 340 feet of climbing in 4 hours and 45 minutes.

We spent a few days getting to know New Orleans. We learned how to get around on the street cars. They are vintage and so cute. We walked so much our feet got blisters.

We learned how to make Muffuletta sandwiches which are so good that I am giving you the recipe.

1 large round loaf italian bread
1/3 pound Salami sliced thin
1/3 pound ham, sliced thin
1/3 pound provalone sliced thin
1/3 pound mozzarella sliced thin

Slice the bread horizontally in half. Brush bottom half with a little olive oil. Layer on ham, salami, provalone and mozzarella. Top with olive salad. Put top half on and cut into quarters.

Olive Salad

2/3 cup green olives (pitted and chopped)
2/3 cup black olives (pitted and chopped)
¼ cup pimento (chopped)
3 cloves of garlic minced
1/3 cup parsley chopped
1 tsp oregano
¼ tsp black pepper
½ cup olive oil
1 Tbs Capers
1/3 cup finely chopped Cauliflower
1/3 cup finely chopped carrots
1/3 cup finely chopped celery

Mix thoroughly and marinate for 24 hours in a covered container.

Bike touring always makes travel a richer experience. Even the bad times seem like fun in retrospect. This trip was a great challenge, and having lived to be able to tell about it makes it all worth it. We're looking forward to our next tour, any suggestions?