Day 153: Davis Lake Campground, MS

With the high heat and humidity, our daily cycling becomes a mad scramble to cover our miles as quickly as possible, in order to avoid the worst of the heat.  So it was today, though we also had the threat of afternoon thunder showers to be concerned about.  We were out of the campground before 6:30 am (the sun wasn't quite up yet, but it was still 81 degrees out) and I was on the bike a short time later (it was only 75 degrees on the Trace).

Lana, the prairie dog.

My bike's shifting has improved considerably, though I did need to stop a few times to make some minor adjustments.  I eventually got things working pretty smoothly and managed to make good time.  The terrain has once again flattened out a bit, but we had more traffic on the Trace today than for the past several days combined.

I was riding on one stretch where oncoming traffic was attempting to pass in my lane (there's no bike lane on the Trace).  The first time I just looked at the guy in disbelief as he sped by me.  The second time I wasn't in a mood for a repeat, so I jumped in the center of the lane before he got out of his lane and looked at him thinking "What the hell are you thinking?"  Fortunately, I won that game of chicken.

But I guess I need to back up a bit.  On the Trace, bicycles are allowed to use the entire lane, and traffic is required to change lanes when passing (some actually do this).  Motorists are also required to maintain a minimum distance of three feet from any cyclist (the ones who don't must only know the metric system).  So how does anyone add the two of those together and figure it's OK to use my lane to come screaming toward me at 70 mph, leaving me perhaps a couple of feet of unused pavement???

Of course that was near Tupelo, one of the two urban areas on the Trace.  We had the same sort of experience last year, and we'll likely get some of the same when we go through Jackson in a few days.

Anyway, the highlight of our day was meeting a group of several women from Memphis who were bicycle touring the southern half of the Trace, having done the northern half together last year.  We seem to have chatted with them just long enough, as a half mile from the end of my 51 mile ride it began to rain.  Then the thunder and lightning began.  And 15 minutes later, as we arrived at our campground, it let loose for well over an hour, and there were repeated flash flood alerts broadcast for our area.  So we waited in the van for it to stop before setting up camp for the night.

We are camped at Davis Lake Campground ($20, power, water, push button showers), where we had camped last year.  In fact, we are in the same campsite.  Last year, it was one of the last available sites.  This year, it happens to be one of the best shaded campsites, so we should be more comfortable here than elsewhere.

The rain finally did clear, and thankfully it cooled things down to a tolerable level.