Starting the Natchez Trace

For those of you waiting to hear – yes, Monday did arrive along with the replacement motor for our slide-outs. Mike installed the aftermarket motor and…. nothing. We figured it was just the latest disaster in a string of them since landing in the U.S. Luckily, Mike realized that it was possible that he installed the motor upside down so, he uninstalled it, flipped it over, and reinstalled it. This time it worked. One for the win column.

If you’ve been following along, you know our first week in the U.S. was a parade of problems, some pretty major. Fingers crossed, we’ve left all that behind us. Even the weather finally decided to cooperate, and we got our first ride on the Natchez Trace Parkway.

The Trace, as it’s commonly called, is a gorgeous 715 km (444 mi) scenic drive stretching across three states. It loosely follows the historic “Old Natchez Trace,” a route once used by American Indians, traders, and soldiers. The Trace is a road federally owned but managed by the National Parks Service. It’s free of commercial traffic—just a few cars and the occasional cyclist like us. I’d heard it gets busy near cities at rush hour, but so far, we’ve seen maybe one car every minute or two. One great part? Drivers here are amazingly courteous to cyclists, moving entirely into the other lane. Some signs even remind them that bikes have full rights to the road.

Riding the Trace is like riding through a never-ending park on a really wide, smooth path. Every so often, there are turnoffs to historic sites—like the “Sunken Trace”, a section where centuries of foot and wagon traffic literally wore the ground down into a sunken corridor. Mike’s skeptical about this explanation, but we walked along it anyway.

The friendliness here is almost surreal. Strangers wave from across the street. At one little country store, the owner invited us to sit on the porch with him and some locals just to chat. When people find out we’re Canadian, they are genuinely shocked. Apparently, Mississippians don’t see many of us around here.

The inward-looking mindset is… interesting. Talking to waitresses, I heard two separately boast about being “well-traveled”. One said she had visited 35 states. Neither had ever left the United States. We still meet folks who sincerely believe that everyone in the world (Canadians included) dream of moving to America. They’re not being rude; it’s just their honest view. I heard the same thing decades ago when I worked in the States, and nothing’s changed. How wrong can they be.

As for Trump, the general attitude seems to be: Ignore him; it’ll all be over in four years. There’s little awareness of how his policies might affect people and cities in other countries that have “legal, signed” trade agreements with the U.S. There is even very little thought about how other portions of the US might be affected. Mike and I try to update folks without being critical. We don’t want them turned off.

In Europe we were used to settling in one place for weeks and exploring by bike, but options here are slim. The closest town is Port Gibson. General Grant once said it was “too beautiful to burn.” That was then. Today, there are still some lovely houses, but the town and much of what we’ve seen in Mississippi feels like it’s in decline. Lots of boarded-up and abandoned homes, peeling paint, and a shrinking population. It’s a little depressing, honestly, and doesn’t invite exploration. I read that Port Gibson had seven churches, just on its main street, not counting others in the area. We couldn’t believe how many we saw and how many cars were in the parking lots on Sunday.

We’re used to staying in one place for weeks and exploring thoroughly by bike. Here, there aren’t many nearby towns, and we’re starting to worry that much of the U.S. might feel like this – spread out, with fewer interesting stops than we’re used to in Europe. One pleasant surprise was the city of Natchez. We couldn’t find a good audio walking tour, but the town has sidewalk markers and good information boards. One problem is that this entire area seems to define their history as what happened in the 1800s, which includes their civil war. The civil war is not something that Mike or I are particularly interested in.

The other town of any size in this area is Vicksburg. The main historic architecture in Mississippi seems to be Greek revival. Vicksburg also had a sidewalk tour but it wasn’t very well labelled and it didn’t have anywhere near as many interesting plaques or information boards. What was lovely in this city were the 30 wall murals along the river, each with a plaque that talked about the picture and the history of the town. They were really well done.

One wet day we drove back to Vicksburg and picked a restaurant called Rusty’s from Google Maps for lunch. Rusty’s turned out to be the most popular casual restaurant in Vicksburg which was a nice surprise. In mid-afternoon it was still packed with a luncheon crowd.

One detour we took off the Trace was to see the Windsor Ruins. 23 massive Corinthian columns – 40 feet tall, on 10-foot bases – from what was once the largest antebellum mansion in the state. It survived Union occupation but was destroyed 25 years later in 1890 when a guest dropped a cigar. One careless moment and then—17,000 square feet up in flames.

We’re staying at Grand Gulf Military Park, a quiet, affordable state park. No bouncy castles or fancy amenities, but we don’t need those. What we do have are giant carpenter bees buzzing around. Males are harmless, while females are docile until provoked – so they say.

The state park also has small museums and historic buildings, which make for good wandering on days when biking isn’t possible. Speaking of biking, we watched a YouTube couple with a van, ride the Trace. One would ride while the other drove “support.” That might be fine for them but Mike and I want to ride together. This means doing every stretch of the Trace twice, often looping back on nearby roads. So our 715 km route becomes 1,500+ km. Honestly, it’s daunting. I already miss Europe’s trains which allowed us to take the train in one direction and then cycle back to the starting point.

In addition, the weather’s not helping. We’ve had four straight days of rain, barely riding at all. We drove into town just to get out of the camper. At this rate, 1,500 km could take a while.