The River Levee Ride, Thursday 4/23/15

Our  steamboat put into an unused ferry site on the west side of the river today for our morning ride's departure point. It was another 30 miler, and, with the threat of afternoon storms, we decided to take it. Besides, there were a couple interesting aspects to the morning ride we didn't want to miss.  First, was our first opportunity to get off the bike and stretch our legs at the "world's smallest church," the Madonna Chapel. It was constructed in the early 1900s in thanksgiving for an answered prayer. It has Mass there once a year on Aug. 15th, The Assumption, and although we missed that ;), we lit a candle and said a prayer. Further down the flat, smooth road along the west side of the river levee, we stopped at the Plaquemine Lock Museum. Although no longer used as a working lock (I can relate since our Locks at St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis are soon to be decomissioned), it was a fun rest stop. We got on the ferry near there and crossed the river and biked down to old eastern unused ferry landing where we met our boat. After lunch on the boat, we had the choice of riding another 18 miles to our next stop, taking the bus, or staying on the boat. We decided to ride the boat and shower. We arrived at our next stop in the late afternoon where we were met by those who biked. We had too many options for the time allotted at this short stop. We could wait a bit for ye old southern crawfish boil, complete with creole band or head across the road to tour of the Houmas House Plantation and gardens. We decided on the house tour. This is one of those places that has been continuously inhabited, and therefore upgraded, over the years. Its original structure dates to the 1700s. That part is now a high-class restaurant and has been on some nationally televised cooking shows. The 'newer' structure is still very impressive. There are many antebellum artifacts and furnishings in the rooms and the first two floors are open to tours, even though the current owner lives there and uses them, too. I guess that is real southern hospitality. Our docent was spectacular, the gardens were amazing, and it was well worth the time. We were on the last tour, and we missed the crawfish, but had to make the hard choice.

The Madonna Chapel: altar

The Madonna Chapel

Some of our group on the ferry.
I bet they don't see this every day!

Angola State Penitentiary, Wednesday 4/22/15

More choices awaited us today. Since we didn't ride yesterday, we took the opportunity to take the morning short ride, a 25 mile ride from St. Francisville to Angola State Prison for lunch. It was a warm ride on MS backroads and when we arrived, we saw the museum outside the main gates. After lunch and listening to a great gospel band we joined half of the group (the other half went earlier) for a peleton-like, guard escorted, tour ride inside the gates of the pen. It was an 11 mile loop on prison grounds, seeing several of the cell blocks that, until recently, held only 30 year to lifers. We stopped twice for interpretive explanations of the prison life and history, met a couple of their guard dogs and horses (they breed them there), and even saw two aligators in their natural habitat! At first, the road followed a levee by a bayou where we saw the gators, or at least their eyes and snouts.

We borded the afternoon bus for the ride back to the boat, rather than extend our ride out any farther. Our afternoon tour stop was at Rosewood Plantation, another beautifully restored house, this time on an actual plantation.

We came back tired, sweaty, but in decent shape for a 36 mile day so early in the season. The training in the gym is paying off!

Funeral hearse built by the prisoners.
Most men in this prison only leave this way.

The Angola State Pen's Main Gate

Rosewood

The Second story balcony.
Note the black trim: this family was in an almost perpetual
state of mourning with the death of both their sons: one by yellow fever at 7 yrs
and the other drowning in the river at 27 yrs.

Natchez, MS: Tuesday 4/21/15

Today was a day of choices. Morning and afternoon rides were offered as was a morning hop on, hop off bus tour of Natchez. We decided to take the morning bus tour. Natchez was a huge river trading stop, the western most point in MS. Many of the richest plantation owners built "town homes" here, and each tried to outdo the others in oppulence. General  Grant deemed the city "too beautiful to burn' during the civil war so many of the ante-bellum homes are intact and now restored to their glory. We saw three homes before lunch: Magnolia, Stanton, and Rosalie. We also had to make a stop at the Basilic of St. Marry in Natchez, the first cathedral in Mississippi. We heded back to the boat after Stanton Hall, a little too late to load our bikes on the truck for the afternoon ride, so we hurridly boarded the bus to lunch at the beautiful Cedar Grove Plantation. It was sunny and warm and good southern food; a perfect day for a picnic on a plantation! We didn't get to see inside because it is a working Bed and Breakfast Inn, but the grounds were georgeous.

Then, it was back on the bus for our last stop at Longwood, one of the most interesting places we've ever seen. It, too, was a town home built by a wealthy plantation owner, but when the war broke out, he lost his land and then died shortly after.  The house was never completed. The workers, mostly from the north (Pennnsylvania), left the worksite at the outset of the war and never returned. They left many of the tools they used in the unfinished portion of the house. The succeeding genertions never had enough money to complete it, so they lived in the finished "basement" until the house finally made it into the hands of one of the garden clubs that administer it now. It's architecture is unique as well, with an eastern onion skin type dome and octgonal design. You can look up from the first floor into the dome and still see all the scaffolding used to build it. Fortunately, the outside brick (it would have been stuccoed later) and roof were completed! Amazing place.

The Basilica of St. Mary

Longword's unfinished upper stories

Longwood

The Natchez Trace: Monday 4/20/15

High water has forced some changes in our trip, especially when it comes to landing and therefore bike routes. Many of the landings out tour guides used in past years are under water this year, forcing changes to plans. Day 3 was the first time it happened. We had to land at Vicksburg, MS and took a bus (the bikes rode a truck) to Port Gibson where out bike route began. There, we rode out of town for a few miles and turned on to the Natchez Trace. We've heard a lot about it from Caitlin and Will, who regularly bike the northern part of the trail. We completed about 30 miles of the southern most portion. The Natchez Trace began as a trail for people to walk back from Natchez to points north instead of taking boats up river before steam was used on the river. Now it is administered by the National Park Service, and it is beautiful: a nice, smooth, two lane (no shoulder), low traffic (commercial vehicles are prohibited) highway with controlled access or a few roads that cross that have to stop. We couldn't have

asked for a better day to bike. Our lunch stop along the way was at the Old Country Store in Lorman, MS. Absolutely great southern fried chicken and hospitality. We biked to our afternoon rest stop, an old "inn" along the way, waited for an hour for the bus to take us the rest of the way, and finally set out. After 5 minutes on the trail, we saw our bus go by on the opposite direction (they got a special permit to drive on it for that day) and at Marge's urging, we decided to turn around and head back. It was a beautiful ride, and someday, we'd like to ride the whole Trace!
I know I'm way behind on these posts, but I'll eventually get them done!

Helena, AR: Day 2

We pulled away from Memphis about 9:30 pm last night during a steady rainstorm. It was still raining when we woke up this morning in Helena, AR. The weather forecast did not look very favorable for the morning at least, so we were given several options: 1) Ride the planned 30 mile ride to lunch and board the bus to bring us to the boat at suppertime, 2) Bus from the boat, pick up our bike at lunch, and ride the 40 miles to meet the boat at suppertime, 3) Ride the entire 70 mile ride, 4) Ride the bus to lunch and the scheduled stop at the American Blues Museum in Clarksville, MS or 5) Stay on the boat. They gave us a little time to decide at breakfast what we would like to do. About half of us decided to stay on the boat for the day. We didn't want to get our stuff too wet right out of the blocks. So, we have had a very restful day on the river. The clouds have cleared this afternoon, revealing a beautiful sunny, warm day and summer-like weather, at least for us. After all, Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, right?
We did, however, get to go into Helena to their theater for a "convocation," presented by a local Baptist pastor which consisted of two prayers, and five gospel songs presented by a quintet called the Hughes sisters, a local choir group, a welcome from a county representative, and ride announcements. Helena is a small town noted for its place as the host of the longest running daily radio show in the country: King Biscuit Time, playing the Blues, as well as a yearly blues festival. Maybe we'll come back some day.

http://www.kffa.com and http://citylinktv.com/channel/helena-kffa/ if you're interested.

On the Boat

This boat we are on is impressive. Six decks, a theater, dining room, three bars, a cafe-type place, a gift store (of course), and several parlor type rooms. I'll never look at the paddle boats in our area in the same way.
We are on deck 3 with a nicely arranged cabin and private bath. Our doors open to a common deck where we can sit and relax and watch the shore and greet fellow bikers. Each night, we will have live music highlighting the areas along the river. Last night, we heard Joyce Cobb and her band. She gave a marvelous concert with a short history of Gospel, the Blues, and Rock 'n Roll.
This should be a fun trip!

The American Queen at the Beale St. Landing, Memphis, TN

Welcome Aboard!

Graceland-Memphis #2

Our lunch stop on Saturday was at Graceland. We arrived about 10:30 am and, since lunch wasn't ready until 11:30, we chose to stand in line and take the tour of the mansion. We waited in line about an hour! I guess it's very popular on the weekends, maybe on weekdays, too. We boarded a shuttle bus across from the mansion and each of us received an iPad and headphones for the narrated tour. It didn't disappoint. The tour was very well done, explaining much about the mansion with many audio and video archived materials. It is held in time: nothing has been changed since 1977 when Elvis died, so it was fun to see the period decorating, electronics, and all the other "state of the art" things that Elvis bought with his fortune. The grounds are beautifully kept and we saw much memorabilia, including his hall of gold and platinum records, awards, clothing and costumes for performances, and exhibits on his career both in music and movies. We finished with a visit to his grave on the site, appointed with a huge Sacred Heart Statue and cross for his headstone, set off from his actual grave. I'll have to do some research not that! Across the road, after another shuttle ride, is the museum and stores. We ate lunch in the car museum, with catered Memphis BBQ that was good, but not as good as Blues City Cafe (my opinion). We also missed drinks. They only had diet soda left by the time we arrived. After visiting his two planes (they won't be there much longer as they were sold) and the gift store, we retrieved out bike and set out for the 15 mile afternoon ride.
We were on the tail end of the teams to leave Graceland, but still not alone as we biked a rather circuitous, but somewhat scenic, route to the Beale St. Landing. There, we formed a queue with the other bikes to board the American Queen Steamboat. We brought our bike up to the third deck (our cabin is on third), parked it on the railing with other tandems, and checked out our cabin. It's very nice!

Graceland Masnion

Sun Studios

Our first stop on our first ride was a short 2 miles away from the Sheraton in Memphis, our stay for the night. I had some problems getting used to our new Garmin GPS device, but we made it to the stop for an interesting tour of the "birthplace of Rock and Roll." Sam Phillips recorded blues music for African Americans there until Elvis showed up one day. He cut a record (most of their business at that time was for private recordings) for his mother's birthday present, and the woman who recorded it was so enthralled, she convinced Phillips to get him back. He then recorded a record that he played on his radio show, and the rest is history. A lot of famous people recorded on Sun Records, including Johnny Cash, Ray Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis. For music history, it is a great place to visit and the tour guide was great.
Leaving the studios, I took a wrong turn right at the first intersection, getting used tot he GPS again. We doubled back to the studio where I had a short intro session with Gene, the Garmin Guru, who helped explain some of the perceptual difficulties I had in reading the maps. It turns out proper map orientation lags a bit (until it figures out how you're moving relative to where it knows you are; finding the signal is quicker!).
About 18 miles later, we ended up at Graceland, home to Elvis. The roads were typically city streets; with a 6 mile stretch along Elvis Presley Blvd--not the best biking, but we're used to city traffic.

Marge with Elvi's Microphone: X marks the spot he first recorded

Sun Studios: the Home of Rock 'n Roll

caption

Arrival in Memphis-pre-tour

After a long day on the road yesterday, having a pleasant evening visit, meal and overnight stay with Kris and Clay just outside of St. Louis, and a four hour drive today, we arrived at the downtown Sheraton in Memphis, TN about 2:15 pm today. We unloaded all our gear and brought it up to the room after checking in, and then proceeded to take down the bike, put it's front wheel on, and then it took its very first ride on an escalator to the second floor meeting room, which was transformed into a bike storage room and re-assembly center for those who travelled with their bikes dis-assembled.  While Marge settled into our room, I drove the car to the parking ramp reserved for our cruise, about four blocks away from the hotel. After I came back, we went in to check in and get our "packet." I was a little nervous when they couldn't find our bag right away! But, all is in order and we asked about bike storage, got some extra luggage tags for the boat, and some information about the city and where to eat. It turns out, most of the teams are keeping their bikes in their rooms, so we picked ours up and brought it upstairs (10th floor) via the elevator--a tight fit for a tandem.
Then, it was time to get something to eat so we walked down to Beale street and ate Memphis BBQ (yum!) at the Blues City Cafe. I love eating local when we travel! On our way back, we walked down to the river to see our landing for tomorrow's embarking.
We're resting up the rest of the night for the beginning of our tour tomorrow. It looks like, by the signs (see below), that Memphis is a bike-friendl town. We will test that tomorrow!

Last Weekend Training

Our departure date is coming fast! Last weekend was our last full weekend of training culminating with a 3 hour and 45 minute ride on Saturday. We slept in, had a big, late breakfast, and made it to the gym around 9:45 am. Apples and Belvita biscuits kept us going throughout and an old Cary Grant movie (Amazing Adventures, 1936) with Season 1 episodes of JAG kept us entertained throughout. We took it easy the rest of the day, but did put in a 90 minute ride Sunday evening. This week, we are tapering, that wonderful way of taking it easy before the big event. Maybe one more short ride on the calendar and a test ride on the bike before we go. There is much to do before we are ready to hit the road on Thursday morning. Marge is working evenings trying to prepare for the trip. Tomorrow will bring laundry and beginning to pack. Hopefully, I'll get the yard and house in shape before we leave. We'll have to put the rack on the car as well. We are getting pretty excited about the trip, especially being able to see Caitlin & Will and meet his family for the first time, and to visit Kris and Clay both coming and going. Oh, yes, the rides will be fun too as will the paddleboat trip!

Another week inside

The weather still isn't cooperating for outside riding, so we spent another week indoors plus we had to tweak our training schedule for Holy Week by moving up a ride so we could take Easter off.
Our movie of the week was "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." It reminded us of the book we read when our children were younger, so we thought we'd give it a try. It was fun and served the purpose of distracting us on our "short" ride (1 hr 30 min) on  Holy Thursday. Our movie on our 3 hr 15 min ride on Good Friday was "Chocolat," one of our favorite Lenten movies. It was not the best idea for Mike to watch all that chocolate candy being made and eaten on a day of fast and abstinence, but Marge had no trouble being tempted (since chocolate triggers migraines for her). We've finished Season 2 of classic Hawaii 5-O and moved on to Season 1 of JAG now to fill in the gaps. We were back for more on Holy Saturday for a 2 hr. 30 min ride, bringing a new meaning to Triduum. We survived and really enjoyed Easter Brunch with John and one of his seminary classmates at Jax Cafe in northeast Minneapolis.
Today, I downloaded the map routes for the rides and put them on our new Edge Touring GPS. Now, if the weather would only cooperate (it was in the high 30s and raining here this morning) so we could do a little more road testing before we leave. Departure date is the 16th, so it's coming fast!
After one more week of long rides, we taper next week and scale way back. Soon, we will find out if all this effort helps when we hit the road in Memphis! Peanut's care is now arranged, too, so things are falling into place! Does she look concerned?