day 11: Natchez, MS/Vidalia, LA to Winnfield, LA

92 miles – 1,841 ft climb

May God grant you light traffic and wide shoulders.

Old Indian proverb (just kidding, I made it up)

Bruce left our Riverfront RV Park around 9:30 and I left around noon. We were on Hwy 84 almost the whole day. It had great shoulders and not too crowded. The last 20 miles or so had no shoulders, but hardly any traffic.

About an hour down the road Bruce came upon a town called Frogmore. It cracked him up because he had just ridden by a bunch of dead frogs on the shoulder. Apparently they also have a special Ancient Mound in Frogmore. No word as to whether the mound is actually made of the dead frogs. Ughh! Sadly, I missed it all tooling along in Harvey. But truthfully I’m not all that sad about missing dead frogs on the road.

I caught up with Bruce in the town of Jena, LA. We stopped for lunch at the Burger Barn. Bruce had a burger and I had a pulled pork sandwich. After lunch I had to make a quick stop at WalMart because I ran out of creamer this morning. If you’ve ever had coffee with me you know what I’m talking about. There must be a rush on Coconut Creamer because the last 2 WalMarts I stopped at didn’t have it. I had to settle for some kind of caramel creamer.

Also I passed a place called Almost Home Hospice Care. Does that imply that they treat you almost like you’re at home? Or that you are about to die and therefore “almost home”?

We still didn’t have sunshine today, but at least it wasn’t raining. And it was cool. High 60s. Pretty good day for a bike ride. I guess the wind was in his face this time. But he’s from Kansas, so whatever.

There was a great sidewalk all along the side of the Mississippi River. But one section had seen better days. I asked another guy walking about it and he said that the river came up really high last year and when it went back down, it took the ground under the sidewalk with it. Looking at the river made me start contemplating how lucky we are that God gave brilliant minds to engineers to develop these strong, sturdy bridges. Without them it would be nearly impossible to get to the other side. Then I digressed to humming Mississippi Man/Louisiana Woman by Conway & Loretta. I’m still humming it.

I gave Bruce a little drafting boost the last few miles. Since there was hardly any traffic, I put my hazard lights on and drove about 30. I couldn’t believe he was able to keep up at 30 mph. He just told me it’s called pacing. Aren’t you glad this is such an educational blog?

I gotta say, Dollar Generals are alive and well in the south! I think every small town has at least one along highways 90 & 84. I have seen so many of them that I have come to consider them my little friends. Almost like a yellow smiley face emoji. Is this what happens to you when you drive an RV alone across 5 states?

We are at our “RV park” now. I use that term loosely. Bruce washed his bike like he usually does and is now out washing Harvey. Because what better way to wind down after biking 92 miles? Any of our neighbors reading this probably aren’t surprised. 🙂

Annie sent me these pictures of Kinsley facetiming with me. If you look closely in the last picture you can see me reading a book to her on the phone.