August 21, 2016
Day 82 Tupelo to Houston
Today was longer and easier than any day recently.
It was a short 42 miles from Tupelo to Houston on the Trace. It's not as hilly as it is farther north, but there are still enough climbs to make you work.
The area we rode through today was home to the Chickasaw tribe before they were removed to the Indian Territory via the Trail of Tears. We saw the site of a Chickasaw village, but there wasn't anything there except grassy fields and signs and markers erected by the park service. It really wasn't very interesting to see only drawings of what would have been a "typical Chickasaw village". There was nothing that survived on the land from the Indian settlement.
Our next stop was at the Tupelo National Battlefield. It is a small field surrounded by commercial development.
Back on the Trace, we stopped at a few more Chickasaw related sights and scenic overlooks. The coolest thing was at one stop where there were dozens of butterflies which landed all around and on us! I don't know what the dark blue ones are, but we've been seeing them for the last few days.
We arrived at our rental house in Houston before 1PM, unloaded the panniers and headed to the Tanglefoot Trail. It's a 45 mile rail-trail which starts here in Houston and goes north to New Albany. It was so good to ride on a flat trail with unloaded bikes. The 35 miles we rode on the trail seemed almost effortless after our days of climbing hills carrying 50 pounds of gear.
We stopped for a break in the little town of Houlka. We were very disappointed to find that the ice cream parlor was closed on Sunday. We repaired to the trailhead shelter, where we met cyclists Carter and Travis. They were both very friendly and welcomed us to Mississippi. We talked trails and touring for awhile and gave each of them our card.
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As we were getting ready to leave, we noticed Travis' gloves. They had blinking arrows on the back, activated by contacts between the thumb and forefinger, which he used to signal turns. He said they were developed by a Google engineer. They were definitely the coolest bike gear we've seen this trip.
We used a bike rack kindly provided by a store on the way back through HoulkaTandems have different parking requirements than single bikes.
Today's ride: 82 miles (132 km)
Total: 3,829 miles (6,162 km)
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