"This is the story of people on the move." -Natchez Trace Parkway brochure

The Trace.
Dogwood and redbud-lined, the Natchez Trace is a 444-mile national parkway between Natchez, MS and Nashville, TN. It began as a footpath for local Natchez, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Indians. “Kaintucks,” Ohio River Valley farmers who floated their goods down the Mississippi River to New Orleans’ markets, walked the Trace back north. The U.S. Postal Service carried mail over it, Confederate and Federal troops traveled it. It’s a popular byway for North America’s RV-cruising retirees, and a few bicyclists.

“They’re callin’ for hell comin’ through here in a little bit.” -Trace traveler, mi.55
My first full day on the Trace, and I was feeling pretty good. The pavement was smooth, the traffic light. The sky didn’t look so promising, but what was a little rain with this tailwind? At least it wasn’t hellishly hot. Arnound mile 46, a southbound pickup flashed its lights and pulled toward me. An arm flapped out the driver’s window. It was a park ranger. “You know there’s a tornado watch on til 5 o’clock tonight.” She looked me and my bike over. “And you don’t have a radio." I agreed. "Rocky Springs Campground is just up the road. There’s a bathroom there with no windows. You may want to just wheel your bike in there and hang out til this blows through.” She looked at the sky before driving off. “Be safe.”
I had a big day planned—90 miles. The idea of sitting in a windowless ladies’ room was less than appealing. Plus, what would my outdoorsy friends think? But the warning had unnerved me a bit. I tried to remember tornado procedure—lie down in a ditch in a field? I looked around. Trees everywhere. Not so great. I thought back to when I was in a tornado in Maryland, and of the two girls who had died in it not 200 feet from where I’d been. And they had been in a car. I remembered that tornadoes had touched down in Louisiana last week. I became suspicious of every gust that blew through and pedaled faster. I turned into the campground.
I parked my bike in the handicap stall and sat down to wait on a bench outside. I ate lunch. I quizzed stopping motorists for weather updates. One had a static-laced radio: “…tornado warning [crackle]…effect for southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi [crackle]…60mph winds and quarter-sized hail…moving north at 35mph…” “Warning,” another listener said. “That means they’ve seen one.”
It started to rain. Another traveler came out of the men’s room, pulling a roller suitcase behind him. He walked quickly by me, then tossed a question back over his shoulder like an afterthought: “Your mother coming to get you?”
What? For a moment, I thought I was a high school freshman, waiting for a ride after soccer practice. Not 27 in southern Mississippi.
He stopped, turned around and looked at me. “How far to your next camp?” “Oh,” I said, still feeling slightly confused. “I’m on a month and a half long bike trip.” “Really.” He thought this over. “Very good,” he said, then turned and strode to his car.
I never saw the tornado. By 2pm, the sun was returning, and by 3pm I was on the road again. I still got 90 miles in before dark.

Out of shape and holding steady.
Many people have asked me what I’m doing to keep from losing weight. They see weight loss as the inevitable result of daily pedaling. So I keep checking my love handles to see if they’re disappearing, but then I eat another Snickers bar, or some fried catfish, and well, I don’t think I’m in any danger of emaciation.
Soon after I started biking, in between various seat adjustments seeking the least painful angle, I realized that, not counting a 45minute stint on Grandma’s exercise bike, it’d been a good 6 months since this butt had been on a bike. Let’s just say there’s been a break-in period, and it hasn't been easy.
And lung capacity? Stopping to chat with an afternoon recumbent rider, he asked me if I was headed to Little Mountain. Little Mountain? I thought I was in Mississippi. “We call it a mountain ‘round here, but you’d probably call it a hill,” he explained. “It’s about 600 feet.” Sir, that’s a bump. Halfway up it, I was in my lowest gear and panting. Maybe I can detour around the Appalachians…

“This here’s country coffee.” -James, Jeff Busby Campground, mi.193.1
Third morning on the Trace, 2 90-mile days behind me, looking to get to the bike shop in Tupelo before closing. I planned to leave early.
“Yuh want some coffee?” A short, bandy-legged man in a blue plaid newsboy cap and black cowboy boots hollered over at me. He was standing with a skinny guy in a red flannel coat. I hesitated—derailleur help, meet new folks. Heck, I had time. I grabbed my mug and headed over.
James had a propane burner set up on the tailgate of his red pickup. The back bed was neatly arranged, complete with a scrap lumber bed frame. He used to sleep in the cab, but “It got so that front seat wuz gettin’ smallah an’ smallah." So he bought a cover for the bed and made it home.
He’s been living out of his truck for the last 6 months, traveling around and returning to Jackson every month to collect his social security and disability. “People ask wheah Ah’m from, an’ Ah say, ‘Heah an’ theah,’ and then they ask ‘Whaddya do?’ an’ Ah say, ‘This an’ that.’ Yuh don’ let thuh cat outta thuh bag.” James’ Georgia accent half-swallows his words. “Am Ah too fah from thuh south?” he asks me. What? “Ah notice yuh haf a hahd time unduhstanin’ me.”
Mr. Rose is biking to Yuma, AZ. He’s been on the road for about a week and a half now. He started 800 miles back, over the Smokies, in Springfield, Va, just south of Roanoke. He was working in the shipyard there. “They called me in one day an’ said, ‘Mr. Rose, we got some news.’ I said, if it’s a layoff, don’t even give me a pink slip. Let me finish out the day, give me my paycheck, an’ go.’” He got on his bike and started pedaling west to his friends.
Mr. Rose is tall and thin, and his grey hair curls out from under his green John Deere cap. He’s from New Orleans originally. He’s missing a couple front teeth, and one eye wanders away when he looks at you. This is not his first bike trip. “I done biked this Trace up an’ down. I know every bump and crack. Ya get ta know ‘em when yer goin’ like this (he pedals his arms forward), starin’ at ‘em. I done biked the Pacific Crest and the Iditarod. But if I did it again, I’d do it in winter.”
On a bike?! I exclaim my disbelief. He strides over to it. He walks with a limp, his left leg swinging off-kilter from his right. “Yeah. Look at these tires.” They’re fat and knobby. Mr. Rose’s bicycle is a blue and silver Mongoose mountain bike from Wal-Mart. He carries his gear in a child’s roller backpack, the kind with the molded plastic wheels and the extendable handle. He has a green sleeping bag tied to the front handle bars, for added protection he says. A ranger tried to get him to wear a helmet, but after a few days he tossed it in a dumpster. “I don’t wear all that garb,” he says. I note the skinny blue jeans he bikes in. He admits, though, that “that seat ain’t too comfortable. It gets to be about 30 miles an’ I want ta up an’ sling it into the woods an’ start walkin’.”
Mr. Rose says he’s been doing 100 mile days on the Trace. He only did about 40 along the Blue Ridge Parkway, though. “You don’t see past the third sprocket,” he laughs. “I done good if I get to third an’ if I get to one, I get off an’ start walkin’.” I sympathize with the inefficiency of a mountain bike. Well, he says he once biked from Fort Myers, FL to Seattle on an 18-speed road bike in 6 weeks, but he prefers the mountain bike because of its all-terrain features. “Look at the mud on these tires. You ridin’ along an’ then you wake up an’ see tree, tree, tree,” he says, pointing at an imaginary forest, “an’ yer tryin’ to avoid ‘em.” He pretends to swerve his bike through the woods, mimicking the other day. Apparently it wasn’t the first time he’d pedaled himself to sleep.
I chatted with James and Mr. Rose for about an hour, then shook hands and headed off to pack. They never indicated any surprise or amazement or fear over the fact that I was a woman biking alone through the south. To them, I was just one more person on the move.