Biking the Natchez Trace
The Last 500 Miles: Zen on two wheels along the Trace
Starting the Natchez Trace outside of Nashville, I realize I’m about to ride a “dream ride,” the kind of ride that excursion cyclists like myself wish all rides were like: minimal traffic, perfect road, great weather, terrific scenery. The next 440 miles will be without billboards screaming with graphic garishness in an attempt to divert my attention to their product from the natural beauty of autumnal color change.
No towns or buildings or homes, few intersecting roads, and as the ride begins I’m happy to find there’s a conscious effort by what few vehicles I see to give me far more than the requisite three feet when passing.
Conditions are ripe for Zen riding: The experience of the continuing moment, the feel of the air, the sounds, the smells, the sense of communion with the road. All contribute to a heightened awareness of self and surrounding that gives me the most defined sense of being that I can experience. I become fully aware of my place in the environment, the World, the Universe. The act of riding a bicycle becomes far more spiritual than the simple mechanics involved in moving from point A to point B.
This morning is crisp with a Northwesterly breeze that’s more cross than push. I ride far slower than my typical 12-14 mph, simply enjoying the day. I’m tired at the core after over 8,500 miles in six months, but excited at riding the Trace, meeting my girlfriend in Jackson for the final three hundred miles to New Orleans and an end to this year’s bicycle odyssey. Coming from near freezing temperatures in Pennsylvania and Ohio, I appreciate the gradual rise in daily warmth as my journey rolls Southward. I’m sure to find some oddities and interesting experiences, and the food will be better, too.
All along the way, there are discoveries be be made: Whichapi Florence, Alabama
A Sioux medicine man once walked the entire mile and a half of Tom Hendrix’s handmade stone wall and called it Whichapi: “like the stars.”
Hendrix was inspired to build a stone wall to honor the journey of his great-great grandmother, a member of the Yuchi tribe who was forcefully relocated to Oklahoma in the 1830’s on the Trail of Tears. She left the reservation after a year, travelling alone, barefoot, without resources other than her wits and the lessons she’d learned about living off the land, and although it took five years, she managed to find her way home to the banks of the Tennessee River. Several generations later, Tom Hendrix piled sandstone rocks almost daily for thirty-six years to construct a wall that goes nowhere, keeps nobody out and locks nothing in. It stands five feet high on both sides of the walkway it creates, ten feet across and has no mortar. It curves around trees, allowing them to integrate naturally into the wall. Special areas have greater spiritual significance like the Spirit Circle and the Gathering Grotto. The ‘Wall of Souls’ section is full of face-like stones, all formed naturally and found by visiting Native Americans among the tens of thousands of rocks in the wall. Resting spots with built-in benches appear as you turn around a bend. One spot has trinkets, military medals, semi-precious stones, tiny carvings, beads and necklaces left by visitors as offerings of a sort, spilling off a flat rock that cants downward at a slight angle to allow wind and rain to wash them down into the wall. People have sent stones from the Himalayas, Andes, Alps and nearly any mountain range you can name including those on Antarctica and Greenland. He shows me fossils with T-Rex teeth, fossilized clam, Trilobites and a large chunk of iron meteorite that was studied for several months at a Pennsylvania college before being returned to find a place in the wall. Nearing the end of the wall and the stories associated with it, Tom tells me what he was told by Charlie Two Moons, a Lakota Holy Man; “This is not your wall. It belongs to all people. You are just its keeper.”
Leonard’s 3 Way Grocery
French Camp, Mississippi
I pull off the Trace to the tiny burg of French Camp and roll up to an aging cinderblock building, with gas pumps under an awning and a wooden bench near the door. In the back of the little store are three small tables with a half dozen men dressed in work clothes, sipping coffee between updates on Teddy’s nephew, Miss Lena’s operation and, of course, politics both local and national. In the space of an hour or two, the world’s problems are collectively solved, though (according to them) nobody has sense enough to act on their solutions. I’ve encountered this exact scene dozens of times in little Mom & Pop stores in rural settings across the country. I imagine the “three things” that make Minna Leonard’s 3-way are gas, groceries and hunting licenses, unless morning coffee and conversation with the locals have an identity in there.
They ask about my riding a bike all over creation. It’s the usual flurry of, “Where do you sleep? Six months on a bike? Are you rich? Anybody ever try to hold you up?” and so on until enough answered questions results in someone offering to buy my coffee. As I take a seat an old codger in a blue jean jacket and ballcap comes in and sits across from me, obviously recognizing that I’m the owner of the laden bike by the door since I’m wearing cycling tights and my helmet is on the table. He furrows his brow and loudly pronounces his method for solving the “bicycle problem” as he sees it, laying out an open palm and emphasizing each point on a finger.
“I wouldn’t ha’ no prollem wich y’all bicycle riders if y’all (beginning his finger count) paid license fees, insurance, registration, road use tax and had to ha’ a drivin’ license.”
“You know,” I say with just enough enthusiasm for him to think me serious, “I couldn’t agree more! We need to pull our weight, too.” His face takes on a perplexed look. After a few seconds, the other guys whose eyes had been fixed on him, waiting for him to come up with something, suddenly burst into a collective laughter.
Later, a round-faced man named Billy speaks to me outside. “Don’t mind old Bob. He’s just that way. He used to come in every mornin’, pick up a paper and read it with coffee and talkin’, then leave it lay on the table without payin’ for it. One mornin’ he’d just set and opened the paper and Minna, she come out from b’hind the counter with a Bic an’ lit the bottom of the paper. Needless to say, Ol’ Bob got animated real fast and once he’s backed off from the burnin’ paper hollers, ‘Whachoo burn my paper for?’ ‘Aint your paper,’said Minna, ‘It’s MY paper ‘til you PAY for it and long as it’s mine I can set it on fire if I want to.’ From that day on, Old Bob quit reading the paper.”
Mr. D’s Old Country Store
Lorman, Mississippi
Stephanie joins me with her bicycle at this point. We camp on a section of the Old Trace just outside of Port Gibson. Climbing about in the sunken road imparts an impression of what people felt walking it two-hundred years ago. It also makes me thankful for both paved roads and this wonderful machine. On a bad day I can ride twice as far as a man on horseback. We ride into Port Gibson and chat up the locals over coffee and they unanimously recommend we visit The Old Country Store for lunch. I map out a ride that loops us around through Alcorn, then back to the Trace and Highway 61 near our next meal.
A stiff headwind reduces our speed, and our progress further slows with curiosity. We investigate an abandoned, kudzu covered house, an old cemetery with more double names than not on the headstones and farther on, the impressive tall columns of the Windsor Ruins, all that remains of a once grand antebellum plantation home. Later we ride through Alcorn, eventually cross the Trace and hit Highway 61. Less than a half-mile south we come to an old frame building with a nineteenth century-style squared facade and full porch.
The Old Country Store, c. 1885, housed a real country store with hardware and farm supplies, had a bar, was a dance studio for a while and a warehouse before fate and faith made it available to Arthur Davis—or Mr. D—thirteen years ago. He opened a restaurant there, a simple, all you can eat buffet with ribs, salad, collard and mustard greens, black eyed peas, biscuits, green beans, corn on the cob, macaroni and cheese, chicken fried steak, salad, and the star attractions— corn bread (his grandmother’s recipe) and some of the best fried chicken you have ever eaten.
I do not throw that term around lightly. His is tender, incredibly juicy, lightly spiced, and has a crispy coating that makes you want to just eat a plate of skin. He’s been featured on the Food Network, Good Morning America, Today Show, Southern Living, and a host of other shows and publications. There’s nothing fancy. The store shelves and the rolling ladder to access the high shelves are still there, but instead of canned goods and tack he has all manner of ‘junque’ for sale but which likely will stay around as part of the homey ambiance of a drafty old building with creaky floors and a vibe that sets the mood for what you’re there for—a good country meal.
We arrived late, around 4 pm, and after eating I asked Mr. D if we could cold-camp on the property. He said he was delighted to let us stay, as he left for the day. But before we could pitch our tent, he’d turned around and pulled back up to the building next door where we’d taken shelter under the porch from the light rain. He’d recently finished it and it had a bathroom, central air and best of all, was out of the rain.
“This place is empty right now, and my heart’s full. So y’all can have it for the night,” he said inviting us inside.
We dallied the next morning after a good night’s sleep and he pulled in just as we were about to leave. “I felt an angel touch my shoulder and say take care of y’all, so I come back last night. I get all kind of people come through here—cyclists, motorcycles, campers—I may just make this a little two-room inn.”
We stayed for lunch and the fried chicken was even better than the day before. Hospitality is a seasoning, too.
Occasional Country Roads contributor Rick Arnett is a former Baton Rougean who now lives in Portland, Oregon. He’s just completed a 9,000 mile solo bicycle tour around the U. S., joined for the last 300 miles by his girlfriend Stephanie Basalyga.