Natches to Vicksburg

I started this message this morning but ended up pushing the wrong button and erased it all. So perhaps a shorter version. Help Lynn!

We have been in Vicksburg all day. Today our goal was to visit the National Military Park to see the 1300 monuments. A total of 9 went to do that. Pat and I went part of the way. 4 of those went by car and we now understand the reason for that. It is 14 miles of hills. Huge hills. So we saw part of it and went back to the motel. We now understand the importance of the battle of Vicksburg. We met a bunch of preschoolers with their teacher. She taught us along with them that the seige of Vicksburg lasted 47 days.

Our journey between Natches and Vicksburg was quirky. First Pat, (a non coffee drinker) tried to make coffee for me in the morning. She put the filtered coffee where it needed to go and then proceeded to pour cold water over the filter. She was confused when it came out cold and almost clear.

We had a late start that day because our daily meeting started at 7:00. (Normally that is taken care of the night before.) Then Pat and I missed each other's departure and waited for each other a block apart. We eventually found each other but after getting started again, Pat's front pack flew off her bike. We fixed that and went on. My bike sounded funny. We found accumulated dirt and removed that. Then it started raining. You can only get so wet so we kept going. When it ended 5-6 miles later, we were soaked. We took off our shoes and wrung out our socks. I even poured water out of my shoes. But the good news there was that we were no longer facing a really hot day. Plus we were dry in an hour. We stopped to view a couple of sites along the way but not a lot. The last calamity was when Pat lost the screw out of her cleat. You can't get your shoe out of the cleat when that happens. She took the entire cleat off and we kept going.

Our biking time today was about 7 hours and 30 minutes for 86 miles. But our time on the road was more like 9 hours. We didn't arrive in Vicksburg until almost dinner time.

But we traveled the Natchez Trace Parkway. I think my friends, Edith and Mel have cycled on that parkway. It was perfect. No dogs, very little traffic and beautiful scenery. We would go all the way to Memphis on the Natchez Parkway if we could. Oh, oh...Kris had another flat on the ride between Natches and Vicksburg. This makes her 7th flat so far. There were also a couple of others that day. Pat doesn't want me to mention that so far we are ok. She thinks we may be jinked.

This evening I went on a riverboat ride with some of the others. A fun trip and we learned even more about this part of Mississippi.