Water, Water…

We are most appreciative of the Corps of Engineers (despite what Al’s sainted Dad might think.)  We have enjoyed lakeside elegance at Bay Springs Lake, idled beside the St Francois river in the Wappapello Lake district and now, at Carlyle Lake in Illinois, they have outdone themselves.   In our honor they have DOUBLED the size of the lake, sparing no effort to bring the water right up to edge of our campsite!  Mallards quacking gaily wake us as they paddle around the submerged fire rings in adjacent campsites. Pat has erected a sign: “Lake Carlyle -- largest lake in Illinois and getting larger every hour.”

She reminds me that we have become accustomed to old coots peddling around campgrounds, but here we have Coots PADDLING in the campsite.
The Kaskaskia River “knows no bounds” as it spreads across the tabletop flat countryside.  It is not a raging flood;  it is actually pretty here.  The fields are green and Dogwood and other flowering trees are in bloom.  Most hardwoods are leafing out;  The weather is warm and sunny, FOR NOW. 

From the Dam

We have enjoyed the network of bike paths and our ride around the pleasant town of Carlyle.  We did not enjoy our trip to the Centralia Cyclery for repairs.

Campsite/ boat launch/fishing hole

flood refugees

Pleasant weather comes to an end tomorrow as a big rain event arrives and further enlarges the lake. The lake feeds the Mississippi via the Kaskaskia river. The Mississippi is at flood stage and every prediction is for huge floods on the Missouri, the Illinois and the Midwest top to bottom.

"We proceeded on..."

Team Amelia

"Who is Amelia  and why does she have a team?"

The questioner, dressed in Cardinal colors, was waiting with us for a table at Guido's "On the Hill" in St Louis.  It was the bottom of the ninth inning of a cold drizzly game and the home town team was losing.  Lots of drenched fans were bailing out and showing up for warmth and really good Italian.  The waiting room was crowded, noisy and the air was close. Sitting tranquilly in her young aunt's lap atop a bar stool was Amelia, her blond ringlets perking up in the humidity, eyes following the commotion, one arm linked into her Meme's. Botticelli could never have captured her. 
She had been up at 6:00, rode in an  stroller three rainy miles through Forest Park with an adoring throng of thousands, been handed through the arms of countless relatives, entertained and amused all her admirers and now was hosting a late evening supper.  This was a big day for a two year old, but there was not a murmur.

" This is Amelia," said one of the cluster of folks in raincoats and bright blue green "Team Amelia" tee shirts.  "She has a team because she was born three months early, the size of this beer mug and look at her, SHE'S PERFECT!

Greenville

Some days you don't end where you thought you might.  I thought today might end beside the limpid waters of the upper St Francois River in Missouri, a place where river rats play in spring freshets and the song of currents among the stream-smoothed boulders would lull us to sleep. But the navigator turned us into the Old Greenville COE campground, perhaps more influenced by frugality than any historical research, or perhaps it was the sun over the Ozark uplift after a morning running North in a cold rain.

Level spot beside the St Francois River

Now I love my navigator and the many surprises she brings into my life, so we unloaded bikes and began a slow ride along what turned out to be the Lower St Francois at the head of Lake Wappapello. The "bike path" was more a street and...what's this?  SIDEWALKS ...running into the green lushness of second growth trees and ferns.  Parallel pathways seemingly going nowhere...

 















 



Soon we nearly tripped over the placards which unlocked the riddle.  This was the old town site of Greenville established to loot the surrounding land of its "inexhaustible" timber and to provide all necessary services.  It survived into the early 1940's suffering catastrophic floods routinely. (NO trees, beside river = floods. duh!) 1938, in the depths of the depression the WPA build sidewalks in the town even though the COE, having tampered for a century on the Mississippi, had turned their expertise on the tributaries. The Wappapello Dam was finished in 1942 and the citizens of Greenville salvaged their homes and moved the whole town to higher ground, supposedly using the spanking new sidewalks.

Excellent placards tell the story

 

 

 

 

 

 By delightful coincidence our friend Delores turned up beside us in the campground. You really must know Delores (and we always wish we had time to know her better.) 

Delores is a Full Timer. She has been everywhere on this continent in her Born Free camper, TWICE!  Before that she hiked and backpacked all over the US and Europe.  Now that she is a beautiful white haired lady "of a certain age", she crisscrosses the country visiting friends and revisiting old haunts. We always wish we had a week to listen to the quiet tales she tells of big adventures and small treasures she has found along her way.

She would not pose for a picture, preferring to be remembered by her Ragged Ass  (bumper sticker from the road in Yellowknife Alaska she is making famous.)  

 
 

Tanglefoot Trail Mississippi

At the Mississippi Welcome Center we heard rumors of a new Rail to Trail “from  New Albany to Houston – 44 miles”, but the name and opening date were shrouded in mystery.  Tuesday we set of to find it.
Fifty miles from our campsite, we admired the lively city center of New Albany, found a likely looking abandoned rail bed and a nearby library.  Surely, the mystery would now be  unveiled. 
“It’s not open”, said the information desk librarian sternly.
We explained ourselves…
“They’re keeping folks off it”, she offered again, with the same emphasis.
We smoozed, complimented the lovely city scape, mentioned our having birthed a librarian, helped a patron balance her baby carrier…
At best, we got a list of the mid trail towns and a recommendation for a lunch spot –- Tallahatchie Gourmet.
OK, we grudgingly admit the information librarian really does have the 411 on food!  The Gourmet is wonderful.  I only wish we could come back Friday for the Shrimp and Grits Special.

We wandered along the obvious trail around a few orange barrels and into the construction site of a big overpass –the obvious holdup.  We looped South to Ingersoll, MS where the Baptist minister (with a bike racked up on his car)  welcomed us to park in the church lot trailside and briefed us.  The trail, we learned, will be called the Tanglefoot trail and “the dogs around here are not used to bikers yet…”
Warmed and warned, we biked South along  butter smooth pavement that will “need a little cleanup after the storms we’ve had.”

OK, we passed a few orange barrels

...and jumped a tree...

...met some friendly folks proud of their trail

...and saw some really lovely springtime countryside

The Natchez Trace in Springtime

The Natchez Trace is a different experience from a bicycle seat than it is at the top vehicle speed of 45 MPH.  At one tenth that speed, on an interminable hill, there is time to see each wildflower pass.  (Sometimes, between gasps, your wicked couch sitting, Blue Bell ice cream eating life passes before you as well.) But when all the random noises have been tweaked out of the bikes at rest stops (which are totally maintenance related) and the easy bends and dips are swinging along nearly effortlessly, the sounds of Spring Peepers in the puddles, brimful creeks hissing along and crows calling fills your world.  Our senses mark each new vista; We become accustomed to this new place in a new season. Miles fall behind and yet seem quite new when we retrace back to our start. It's a subtle experience, yet far more powerful than the isolated view from the climate controlled vehicle. 

Sorry, we nearly fail to take a photograph,  Here it is, but we hope you will someday experience this place at a pace that helps you feel it. 

Best Idea of the day: Sweet dried Bing Cherries in the Gorp  

Quote of the day (As Patty heads UPHILL on a trail to an Overlook):  " This is our rest stop, right?'

Take heed, take heed of the western wind

 
Oh I'm sailin' away my own true love
I'm sailin' away in the morning

Bob Dylan “Boots of Spanish Leather”

 
So take heed, take heed of the western wind
Take heed of the stormy weather

Also Bob, and a Greek chorus of highly agitated weather forecasters…

So we Have been idling away some really pleasant Spring weather since the last band of tornadoes ripped through Mississippi.  The Dogwoods are blooming and Violets are populating the driveway seams. We want to return to the Natchez Trace in the Spring before it get too hot and the first mowing takes down the roadside wildflowers.  We have driven this long ribbon of NPS serenity countless times, often rerouting to see it again in another season.  We have biked it most times, nibbling away at its 440+ miles of smooth graded two lane.

 

        

The paparazzi can be so unkind.

Al has ridden it in scorching Summer and we have been blown off it in “Thunder Snow”, but in 2011 we found ourselves camped at Jeff Busby CG after a blissful couple days riding “out and backs”.  That night EF 3 and EF 5 tornadoes surged past us in the night, doing fatal damage in the campground and apocalyptic destruction in Tuscaloosa.  Since that frightful night our wanderings have taken us near other scars created by the same outbreak -- Pine Mountain in Georgia, the Hatcher Mountain trails in GSMNP and across the Interstate near Damascus VA. WE ARE BELIEVERS.  So a couple days delay here, the next ugly red smear on the map will pass and  give us a few clear days on the Trace.  We will be following the Real Weather very closely. 

Sunday began early with a ruckus in the neighborhood.  Al was awake and Patty soon followed.  Since we were already hitched and packed, we launched at dawn and ate a quiet breakfast in the Maplesville Rest Area. (This lovely rural Rest Area on a lonely two lane exists wholly for the  convenience of football fans traveling from  Montgomery to Tuscaloosa). 

By afternoon, we were settled in the nearly empty Piney Grove campground on Bay Springs Lake, bedroom window pointed at the lake, the early moon rising over the windswept water. Life is Good, but we were too wasted from our early start to do more than walk the campground and pick our ride for tomorrow.

Springtime along the Trace 

Lakeside Dining

2626 Lakeside

“Already today sixty five miles”

Ulla sat on a sunny bench in front of the library, her Adventure Cycling maps spread in her lap, a fully loaded touring bike leaning on  its stand. It was late afternoon and the Big Lagoon campground nearby was full, the next, 15 miles ahead on the Trans America trail, likely packed with Spring Breakers and Snowbirds delaying their return from Florida to the blizzard ravaged Midwest. It was windy.

 …”but I have from the back mostly today.”
  
“There are no campsites.  I have called them… and I have already today sixty five miles.”

Having Y chromosomes, Al blurted out the solution before being asked, before proper introductions, and well before courtesy would require.

“This is easy.  We have a campsite in the park across the road –- #34.  You can follow us. I’ll talk to the gate guard…”
“Really?”
 
“Sure.”

Soon we we had stowed our books, Ulla her maps and we were through the gate and pulling up to the Airstream.


“Airstreams!  I love them.  They are the only ones I recognize.”


Nodding toward the 2BIKES car tag she asked, “Two bikes? Is that motorbikes or bicycles?” 

We learned quickly the Ulla faces life head on and it’s is doubtful she had too many qualms about being kidnapped by two geriatric Hell’s Angels, but there was just a little relief twinkling around her eyes when she found herself with fellow bike tourers.  Even better, they have a well provisioned Airstream.

We set about tidying the trailer for our guest while she assembled her tent and gear with practiced ease. 

“First tent, then person,” she declared as she headed for the showers.

At the picnic table we shared a meal partially from each of our larders followed by desert in the trailer as the temps headed for the Thirties. We learned that she is Austrian, living in Switzerland, speaks perfect English with delightful British idioms and has crammed three lifetimes of experience into her fifty one years.  Rock climbing, Alpine mountaineering, trips all over Europe (and where else?), bike tours on both coasts of the US and  now this solo trans continental trip. We traded stories into the night and there was so very much more to tell.


 


In the morning we lingered too long over breakfast, the oldsters clucking that “You should eat more; you have a lot of miles to ride.” 






And lingered a little more discussing handlebar geometry.  Ah, Gearheads --  the eternal bonds we forge.



At nine thirty she mounted up and peddled West toward Gulf Shores, Fort Morgan and the Dauphin Island Ferry.  Tomorrow, Bellingrath Gardens and on to more adventures.