A trying day

     Some days just do not work in my favor. After toast and coffee with Vic I packed everything up and headed out. Before entering the Trace I stopped for a real breakfast at the same country store I did when I arrived yesterday, great place, excellent food and a down home Tennessee atmosphere.  After about sevens miles down the road on the Trace I had lousy feeling swept over me. I stop and checked my electronics department and sure enough I had left my battery back at Vic and Pam’s house on the back porch. After calling Vic he drove out and delivered it to me, a true act of kindness. That battery allows me to charge my phone, headset, rear flasher and front light when I don’t have access to an electrical outlet.  It has save me many times. Well, that put me forty-five minutes behind schedule which would cost me as the day heated up. Once on the rode again I clicked of twenty-five miles before breaking for lunch. Although the surroundings landscape is scenic and parkway very bike friendly, the road is a roller coaster.   Long climbs creeping up hill at three to five MPH ( including two steep hills where I had to walk) followed by thirty MPH decents up to a mile.  All day long, up and down, after forty five miles of this torturous terrain I reached Merriweather Lewis camp ground where he died and is buried. Big place, no showers,  no stores to buy provision and certainly no restaurants. At least I found water to refill my four bottles. After lamenting to a woman parked in her car by the rest room facilities about how ill equipped the park was and telling her that I barely enough food for  dinner I rode off to the camping area. The nearest town where there were food stores was six miles off the Trace. Pretty much out of energy there was no way I was riding over and back to buy food. So I set up my tent and headed off to the bathroom facilities. After taking a water bottle shower in the handicap area of the bathroom I was walking out the door and the same women who I spoke to about an hour earlier rolled up and called over to me that she had gone out to the store and bought me a whole load of food: apples, grapes, canned grapefruit, celery and a container of mixed nuts and raisins. She even had a hot hamburger for me.  I was speechless and utterly amazed someone would do such an act of kindness. I offered to pay several times but she would not take a dime.  Marsha (74) and I hung out and chat for a good hour. A New Hampshire person who had had enough of the cold weather and high property taxes headed south to Tennessee. At her house she gas no cell reception and won’t have anything to do with computers.  Divorced with a daughter near by she leads a quite uncomplicated life. Someone is looking out for me.

      What I am realizing and had suspected about the Natchez Trace is its remoteness away from towns and cities. My strategy is changing to not just coveting miles but locating places where I can find food.  Bicycle friendly on the road but very inconvenient in finding the basics.