Saturday, July 12, 2008

We're Home

We are finally home. No great adventures today and absolutely no new roads; every road traveled was familiar and that was comforting. The total mileage for the ten days was 1,576 – not much but enough.

Some generalities from this trip:

  • When I first started talking about this trip and going to Mississippi in July, some people said “Are you crazy? In July?” However, one friend pointed out that it is hot in Kentucky in July. How much hotter can it get? The answer is A LOT! Although the temperatures weren’t too much higher than what we experience at home, the humidity was definitely oppressive. I swear we could almost see the air some days. And if it rained and cooled us off for a half an hour, the steamy heat after was worse than before it rained.
  • We did not have a bad meal the entire trip. We did have one not-so-great waitress (in Jackson Tennessee). She was not only surly with us but other tables around us as well. She will not be a waitress for long, though, or she will starve to death.

  • Most everyone we encountered was extremely pleasant, friendly, and/or curious. Older women and young men commented that riding looks like fun. People wanted to know where we were from, where we were going, or where had we been. Other bikers shared road stories with us. People talked politics and economics with us (and no fist fights resulted). Park rangers and policemen took time to chat with us and answer questions.

  • Our most expensive lodging (Country Inn & Suites in Natchez) was our best accommodations. This isn’t always the case when traveling but this time it was.

  • The least expensive (Belmont Hotel Bed & Breakfast in Belmont Mississippi) was the most disappointing. We only interacted with the host at check in; the breakfast was bananas, cereal, and bread – nothing cooked; and the room was tiny as in just enough room to walk around the bed with the bathroom sink taking up part of that space.
  • The most interesting place we stayed was the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale Mississippi – as we expected it would be. The sharecropper’s shack was just the experience we were hoping for and then some.

  • All other accommodations were mostly what we expected and, except for the Hyatt Place in Nashville, places we would visit again.

Are we glad we took this trip? Yes, we wanted to see the Natchez Trace Parkway and it was beautiful. Would we do it again? No, once was enough.