Ride Time – 7 hrs 18 minutes
Averaged 10 MPH
We had a continental breakfast at the hotel in Centerville before we started bicycling around 6:45AM. We headed out of town on Hwy 48 to Hwy 50. Hwy 50 took us all the way to Shady Grove where we were able to get on the Natchez Trace trail at mile marker 408. Along the way on Hwy 50 we came across a flag man for a road crew who we stopped and asked if he was familiar with the Swan Creek road (this would have saved us about 5 miles had we decided to take it) but he didn’t recommend it and we had talked to someone the night before and they discouraged our using it also so we decided to stick with Hwy 50 and put on the extra couple of miles.
Once on the Trace we had a lot easier riding than what we’ve been accustomed to for the last three week or so. The Trace still has hills but at least they are shaved down and the valley’s filled in so that most of the grades are 3% or less. All of them very doable. The Trace is an excellent bike route, groomed to perfection, very little traffic, absolutely no litter, and shoulders and ditches all mowed right to the tree line. The only down side to the Trace is that there is very little signage so you have to really kind of guess at where you are at and where services might be off route.
The weather was quite cooperative today – when we started out this morning it looked like we might get rained on but we were able to stay ahead of the rain clouds. About 11:00AM it had warmed up into the 80’s as predicted but little by little the clouds caught up with us and at least gave us a little bit of relief from the sun. About 2:00PM it sprinkled a little bit but never enough that we even bothered to put on our rain jackets. It actually felt kind of good.
There are many interesting places to stop along the way on the Trace. Many historical sites, waterfalls, overviews of homesteads, tobacco drying shed, and the Meriwether Lewis death site and burial ground, etc.
We arrived in Collinwood about 3:30PM and stopped at the Collinwood Visitor Center and got directions to Miss Monetta’s Country Cottage(http://www.missmonettas.com) that we are staying at tonight. We had time to get cleaned up before the owners, Dianne and Larry, stopped to introduce themselves. We have very nice accommodations for the evening and Dianne and Larry are very accommodating and even allowed us to use their vehicle to go out for dinner and to breakfast tomorrow morning before we head out. They have an adorable little three bedroom cottage for us to use this evening that has an open porch with two rockers that we are using right now as we blog. We would strongly recommend Miss Monetta’s Country Cottage to any one coming through the area.
Tomorrow we will get back on the Trace and bicycle to Baldwyn, MS - near milepost #282. We will clip off the north west corner of Alabama on our way to Mississippi tomorrow.
Familiar territory for us.
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