26 December 2010

26 December 2010

“The bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created. Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets 3000 miles to the gallon”. – Bill Strickland

We woke up this morning at Sachem B&B in Baldwyn, MS, and ended the day 52 miles south at Bridges-Hall Manor in Houston, MS. We had intermittent snow and sleet, but luckily we had learned how to keep warm by covering our feet with plastic bags (which help keep the wind out).

Some of our favorite things from the day:

1.     The flock of wild turkeys by the side of the road as we headed out of Baldwyn, back onto the Trace near milepost 276.

2.     The gravesites of 13 unknown Confederate soldiers. There are new headstones because the earlier markers were stolen – Miranda thinks they were taken because 13 is an unlucky number

3.     The Natchez Trace Visitors Center just outside Tupelo. We watched a short film about the history of the Trace and learned about the Kaintucks (the people who came down the Mississippi River on flatboats to sell goods and then had to walk home on the Trace). At the Center we also learned that in the region there were three main Indian tribes, called Natchez, Chickasaw, and Choctaw.

4.     In Tupelo we saw Elvis Presley’s birthplace and the church that he went to when he was young. (The church was moved near Elvis’s house in 2008.)

5.     Bynum Mounds just north of Houston, where we saw two Indian mounds where Indians (Marybeth thinks Chickasaws) buried people and their belongings.

The weather is a lot colder than we expected but we keep on going, thanks to all the people who are cheering us on and who donated money for this ride. (There’s still time to donate, by the way!)