Natchez Trace → June 15 - 20, 2003

Day 1 - Sunday, June 15th, 2003

We pulled out of the driveway around 6am (Eastern Time Zone). Starting mileage on the Low Rider was 3885 and on the Sportster was 24155. We had about 550 miles to do that day to get to Franklin, TN so we decided to take Interstate 40 West. The ride was beautiful. It was a little cloudy when we started out, but cleared up quickly. Traffic got a little heavier West of Winston-Salem, but remained at a good pace and we made good time for most of the day.

About the time we got to Knoxville, TN we caught up to a rainstorm and decided to wait it out. It lasted about an hour and a half. Fortunately, the gas station we had stopped at had a table and benches, a cover under which we parked our bikes, and a friendly staff. After the rain passed on we continued our journey just a few more miles until we got caught in a bad rain storm at Cookeville, TN. We pulled over again (soaked - fortunately we already had our raingear on) at a car wash bay.

After a quick call to wish my Pop a Happy Father's Day, the storm had passed and we hit the road again. We finally reached our destination (the Days Inn in Franklin, TN) around 9pm (Central Time Zone). We had been riding through a steady (but not hard) rain for the last leg of the trip and it was still sprinkling when we got to the hotel. The guy at the hotel changed our room assignment to the one next to the end on the bottom floor and told us he wouldn't rent out the one on the end that night so that we could park our bikes on the (covered) sidewalk in front of our room and the one on the end. I didn't even ask about it - he just happened to see us drive up on our bikes and saw our rain suits. I thought that was very nice and told him how much we appreciated that.

Since it was still raining we decided to order out for dinner. There was a pizza place called "Pizza Neatza" that delivered to the hotel so we got a large pizza with three toppings, some hot wings, and 2 drinks (we were starving) for $20! Back at home that would've cost at least $30. On top of the convenience of delivery and a great price, it was some of the best pizza we've ever had.

On this day we ended up traveling 560 miles and saw 91 bikes (a new record for us, and on a rainy day to boot).

Day 2 - Monday, June 16th, 2003

We actually got up around 8am (Central Time Zone) but didn't leave the hotel until around 10am (took a long time to pack after laying everything out the night before to dry). We also had breakfast at the hotel. We headed out and got on the Natchez Trace right away.

The first thing we saw was the archway bridge where the Natchez Trace crosses over highway 96. I got pictures from below when we went under it and then from above right before we crossed over it. It really was an amazing structure. The Natchez Trace through Tennessee was simply beautiful! The scenery had everything, trees of all kinds, hills, valleys, creeks, fields, farms, etc, etc. We stopped at the Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis and Clark) gravesite and memorial. It was neat to read about him and felt like we were experiencing a little piece of history as we walked through the house that he lived in his last few years (he died a "mysterious" death at the age of 35). It was while riding around the area of this memorial that a bee got into Marty's shirt and stung him several times (ouch!).

There were also many places on the Trace where the "Old Trace" crossed and these were marked with signs and looked like a path leading into the woods. It was this "path" that the Chocktaw and Chickasaw Indians took - I observed that they must have been very efficient in their travels because they seemed to cross a lot of creeks or areas of running water. We found out more about them, and the pioneers which used the same trail as well, at the Tupelo Visitor's Center. When reading about them and seeing some of the artifacts it gave me chills to imagine what it would've been like to live as a pioneer or Native American - they both have fascinating cultures.

The weather started to look threatening (we heard thunder in the not-far-off distance), when we stopped at Cypress Creek. We snapped some pictures and took a stone and were on our way. The storm was catching up with us when we stopped again at the Tennessee River. Fortunately we were able to dodge the storm and had clear weather the rest of the day. We stopped again at the Bear Creek Indian Mound. This was one of the several Indian mounds along the Trace. Indians would kill animals and chop down some trees for food and fire as they were traveling and then they would build these mounds and build a structure similar to a temple on top in appreciation of the bounty they received from the land as they went. Seeing the mound made me wonder how big it was in the years they were created - surely erosion of the weather and elements have degraded these mounds quite a bit (and they were impressive still). Even though we only traveled about 250 miles, we stopped so many times that we ended up getting to the hotel around 8pm (Central Time Zone).

Items of interest on this day includes the fact that we kept passing the same group of 4 bikes over and over again, we saw a LOT of turkeys grazing along the side of the road through Tennessee, we crossed over into Alabama and then into Mississippi, and decided that the Trace through Mississippi is not very interesting. In all, I believe we saw 28 bikes that day.

Day 3 - Tuesday, June 17th, 2003

We decided to get a little bit of an earlier start and were on the road at 9am. The Natchez Trace through Mississippi is pretty boring - it is mostly flat, not as many trees, a lot of fields and farmland, the road is not as well maintained, there is more traffic, and there are even a few driveways for houses off the Trace. We were being chased by rainstorms again.

We stopped at Cypress Swamp and took the 20 minute trail. When we were just rounding the last leg of the trail to head back to the bikes we spotted a log with two alligators (one a bit smaller than the other) and a couple turtles. We quickened our step (not knowing how many larger gators might be around).

Shortly after we got back on the Trace, there was a bit of a detour around Jackson, MS where they were working on the Trace. We dodged another rain storm and took lunch in Jackson. We headed on towards the Trace after the storm had passed. The roads were wet and we had our rain suits on, but it wasn't raining much. We finally got to the exit to take us to the Trace and there were 2 trucks pulling campers ahead of us. When they took the exit ahead of us, I saw a spray of what I thought was water come up as they rounded the off-ramp. I slowed down to a crawl (didn't want to hit that water too fast). However, Marty didn't see it and also didn't see the sign that said "Loose Gravel" when he hit the dirt road at 60 miles per hour (that wasn't water I saw, it was dust). As I approached the edge of the pavement and hit the gravel (at a very slow pace) I saw his brake light and was afraid he was going to go down. Fortunately he did not fishtail or slide or anything (maybe he needed to clean out his pants a little). So this section of the Trace was all gravel and dirt. We went along (20 miles per hour) for about 10 miles before we got to a pull-off and decided to take a break. There was 80 miles left of the Trace and we didn't want to do 80 miles at such a slow pace and we didn't know how far the gravel lasted. Fortunately my cell phone had 1 bar of service in that remote area (just outside Raymond, MS) and I called an 800 number that was on our map of the Trace and was connected with someone that could help. We were told that the dirt road went for another 30 miles at least (ack, 2 more hours), so we took the Raymond exit and took a small state road south to Port Gibson, MS - we were able to get back on the Trace there. I was amazed at how quickly the cars went by on the gravel road while we were stopped. They flew past and I heard nothing but tons of rocks flying up and hitting the body of the car. Better hope they were rentals!

After getting back on the Trace again we were back on a very beautiful section of it. The trees on either side of the road were so grown-over that it formed a tunnel across the road. Right before we pulled over to take a picture of it a bobcat crossed the road about 100 feet in front of us.

It didn't take much longer to get to the very end of the Trace and find our hotel in Natchez, MS, arriving around 5:30 (Central Time Zone). We decided to have dinner at a neat little place called King's Tavern and Restaurant. It was in a house that was built sometime in the early 1700's and is said to house a few ghosts, the main one named Madeline. Madeline was said to have been Richard King's mistress and killed by his wife when she found out. Madeline's body was bricked up in the fireplace and not found until the 1930's. The table that we ate at was the one right in front of said fireplace. Of course when Marty's menu (a scroll) rolled back up all by itself, we were obliged to blame it on Madeline.

When riding to and from dinner, I rode on the back of the Sportster and Marty drove so we could save our parking space at the hotel. Of course that gave me a chance to look at all the beautiful mansions through downtown Natchez. What a beautiful town!

On this day we saw 25 bikes.

Day 4 - Wednesday, June 18th, 2003

We left around 8:30 in the morning (still in Central Time Zone) and headed down towards Interstate 10. At one of the rest stops that we stopped at there was a shuttle taking people for tours of Stennis Space Center, which was just down the road.

A boring while after we were heading east on I-10 we decided to cut down on the Gulf Coast Highway (90). The Gulf Coast was amazing - to the right was clean white sandy beaches and to the left were beautiful southern mansions surrounded by old oak trees full of Spanish moss. After getting back on I-10 we scooted back east again for a while.

We saw the USS Alabama battleship and we went through a big tunnel in Mobile, AL. In Florida we stopped at the Harley-Davidson of Pensacola (and I got a shirt).

After a pretty uneventful day of riding we got to the hotel in Crestview, FL around 6pm (still Central Time Zone).

On this day we saw 20 bikes.

Day 5 - Thursday, June 19th, 2003

We had planned on leaving earlier but once again ended up talking to someone in the parking lot for a while and ended up not leaving until about 9:30.

We started out again on I-10 and didn't take us long to figure out that it was boring through Florida so we got off the interstate and got on 319 and took it over to 84 into Jesup, GA. The back roads of Georgia are much like the back roads of North Carolina.

We stopped for lunch at Sonny's BBQ in Thomasville, GA. It was pretty good - but not Eastern NC BBQ. I ordered raspberry cheesecake for dessert but they were out so I got the plain cheesecake. The waitress had already brought our check when I ordered dessert so the next time she came by Marty reminded her to put the dessert on the bill. She whispered to us to not worry about it and to have a safe trip home. It's little things like that that just really make my day. It also started a whole discussion between Marty and I about weather cheesecake is actually cake or pie.

After and afternoon of more boring back roads we got to our hotel around 6:30pm (we crossed over into Eastern Time Zone just outside Tallahassee). We ate at a little diner in Jesup, GA called the Kiwi Restaurant. After eating a fairly expensive dinner of small portions we went to pay with our debit card. Nope - they don't take credit cards. Marty had to walk just next door to an ATM to pull out some cash (we only had about $17 left). One thing I will say about that place tho - I've been in a lot of small towns where everyone knew everyone else, but this beats them all. Quite literally everyone in the restaurant knew everyone else!! And of course that means they all knew we were "outsiders" and all wanted to know of our adventure. After dinner we went back to the Holiday Inn Express and had the best night's sleep we'd had the whole trip.

On this day we only saw 6 bikes!

Day 6 - Friday, June 20th, 2003

Our last day! We headed out late again - around 9:30pm (Eastern Time Zone). We decided we'd had enough of boring back roads and decided we just wanted to get home. We hit I-95 first chance we got and headed north.

We went right by Fort Stuart (my Dad has told me lots of stories of when he was there while in the Guard). We also stopped in at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Savannah, GA. Kept going north and caught up with a big rainstorm. We pulled over at a stop when we just about caught up with the storm. It happened to be right at a huge Honda plant and at the top of a hill (well, as much of a hill as you can get in eastern South Carolina I guess).

We watched the storm getting further away for a while and talked about our next trip. After a while we were back on the road again. We passed by a huge Harbor Freight plant and figured it was a good thing I didn't have any more room in the saddlebags. We followed that storm all the way into North Carolina and ended up getting sprinkled on by just the edge when going through Benson on I-40. We decided we were so close to home that we didn't care if we got a little wet. We ended up getting home around 7pm.

We saw 20 bikes on this day. Ending mileage on the Low Rider was 6142 and on the Sportster was 26456 (time to service both bikes again). Now as for how the Sportster got 2301 miles and the Low Rider got 2257.

We went to Plymouth to pick up the dogs from Marty's parents on Saturday and then washed the bikes and some laundry on Sunday.

States we Visited this Trip

North Carolina

Tennessee

Alabama

Mississippi

Louisiana

Florida

Georgia

South Carolina