2026 Natchez Trace ride - Day 11 - Natchez #3

Selfie on the Natchez Trace

By now it's a pretty typical morning. Wake up, shower, dress, start packing, carry a load of stuff to the bike, go eat some breakfast, back up to the room and finish packing, carry the rest of the stuff to the bike, move the bike over to where the other bikes are, go sit in the lobby and wait for everyone else.

We left just after 8:00. First stop was a gas station. I had gassed up last night so I just bought a bag of ice for the ice chest.

I saw this tiny frog on the ice machine.  He moved all over

Karen's intercom has been having trouble. Her microphone keeps dying so she can't join the conversations. Ron worked on it for a little while but couldn't get it to keep working longer than a few minutes. Finally he gave up and we got back on the road.

Right now it's also become a little typical that we start our mornings by driving through neighborhood streets for some reason. This time there's actually a really good reason , we followed the GPS to Elvis childhood home. It's now some sort of a museum and tourist attraction. It's Sunday so it doesn't open till 1:00. 

World famous downtown Tupelo Mississippi

John has been giving me grief for a few days because everywhere we stop I immediately look for shade to go park in. Whatever the opposite of a lizard is that's what he says I am. But when we pulled into the Elvis parking lot he drove around in a circle and went right to the biggest spot of shade he could find . It didn't happen to be a parking spot but it wasn't open so who cares. 

Elvis Birth Place

Karen and Angela went and walked around the grounds. Angela's the big Elvis fan

In the meantime, Ron went back to working on Karen's helmet. Yesterday I ran a test to see if it was the intercom or the helmet mount.  I swapped Ron's intercom with Karen's intercom, and the problem stayed with the helmet. That's good news , it means the intercom isn't broken and that's the expensive part.

Ron couldn't get the microphone working by the time we needed to leave so Karen was stuck just listening to the conversation rather than participating.  And if you know Karen, that's a real hardship for her.

The GPS led us quickly to the freeway.  Just a minute after we got on, we rode past our hotel!!  What the heck was with all the meandering through back streets if we were 1 minute away from Elvis home via freeway??

Just shortly after that we exited and turned onto the Natchez Trace Parkway.  John announced over the intercom that the next scheduled stop was a visitor center.  He asked if anyone wanted to stop there.  I replied "It depends on how much of this Diet Code I drink by the time we get there" and he said "Good Point".

It felt really nice to get back on the parkway.  The temperature dropped by 6 degrees, and with the shade from the trees it felt cooler than that.  The trees and the neatly trimmed grass all combine to feel serene.

Back on the Natchez Trace Parkway

It's just so nice

While we were riding I got to thinking about Karen's intercom problem.  I actually have a spare helmet mount with me.  It's not the same one.  It's meant for a half helmet.  I got it so I could use it almost like a walkie talkie in the car if Nan doesn't feel like riding some days.  My mount has a hardwired microphone rather than a remotely mounted one.  But it's plenty long to to mount on Karen's helmet and get the mic down near her mouth.  I decided to make that offer.

Right as I decided that, John asked if we wanted to stop and I said yes.  When we stopped I took my spare mount over to Ron and told him what I proposed.  We then stood around for 10 minutes trying to figure out how to add my mount to her helmet.  We finally decided that her mount had to come off first.  We did that then stuck mine on.  It seemed to work but within minutes it had come loose.  The mounting pads just weren't sticking to the helmet.  Eventually Ron got some duct tape out and managed to stick the mount on pretty good.

When it was time to go, Karen got on the intercom to thank me, SHE WAS BACK BABY!!

We headed down the parkway.  I feel it gets redundant for me to say "it was beautiful" and "the road is so well maintained" or even "it's so peaceful and serene".  But all those things are true.

We stopped after 20 minutes to see another indian mound site.  This time we actually went to the big info board and read about it.  These mounds data back to about 200 BC.  The natives didn't live here but they routinely came back to bury their dead in these mounds.  So they are very important and sacred to the native.

Mounds out near the tree line

Zoomed in on a mound

When we got back on the bikes, Karen's intercom wasn't working again.  Ron tried to turn it off and on but gave up pretty quick.  We were stopping again soon anyway, so we went down the parkway.  Peaceful, beautiful, relaxing. blah blah blah.

Our next stop was a park on the Tennessee river.  John and I pulled over to a nice shaded are to park and walk around, but Ron stopped early and had Karen take her helmet off.  He sat there working on it while we took pictures.

Ron working on Karen's intercom

Selfie at the Tennessee river

A panorama of the river

The Tennessee river and the Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge

The lighting was bad so my pictures didn't turn out well, but the river was huge.  In the west we call something 30 feet wide a river.  But out here in the east it takes a quarter mile or more to be a river.  Just behind us was a big bridge spanning the river.  I tried getting pictures but the glare and reflections made them all look terrible.  And to top it off, I forgot my hat so my selfie has my scraggly gray hair sticking up and at the same time plastered down with sweat.

Eventually Ron rode over.  He'd had to completely reset her intercom.  He had no idea what Karen had done to get it so messed up, but it was working now.  That was the last of his problems with her headset for the day.  Karen was able to talk with us through the rest of the ride.

Back on the road and the first thing we had to do was cross that bridge we'd seen.  I guess it was built specifically for the Natchez Trace Parkway to cross.  The views on the bridge were impressive but none of my shots captured that.

Tennesse river from the bridge, and my finger.  I need remedial photo taking 101

Crossing the bridge.  It was more impressive in my head

It was 11:00 when we crossed the Tennessee River and we were getting hungry so we pulled over and tried to find somewhere to eat.  No one but me had cell service, and mine was pretty sketchy.  I managed to find a BBQ place about 20 miles ahead of us and not far out of the way.  John couldn't add it to his GPS so I told him I'd let him know when it was time to turn.

We got back on the road.  We hadn't gone far when I heard Angela say "Cardo mute my microphone".  That's the voice instruction to her intercom to mute her mic so it doesn't pass on wind noise to everyone.  Then I hard Karen say the same thing, then Ron said it.  I thought I'd make a joke so I said "Cardo will you talk to me since no one else wants to?"  and to my surprise the intercom system responded to me.  I didn't hear the response but it surprised me.

I didn't hear anyone talking, but with all the muted mics I didn't expect to.  So we're riding along and we get down to 10 miles so I announce it on the intercom.  No response.  We go farther and get to 2 miles and I announce it.  No response.  1 mile, no response.  As we come to the intersection I say "THIS IS OUR TURN" but I don't see John put on his turn signal so I honk my horn.  Nothing.  I start blaring my horn and get nothing.

I think try to call John on my cell phone.  It takes a few seconds to do it safely but I didn't hear the phone ring and when he answers I can't hear him.  I am totally confused about what's going on.

So I turn my intercom off and back on.  That takes about 30 seconds.  When it comes up, I hear everyone talking wondering why I'm not telling them anything.  But by now we're a good 5 miles past the turnoff.

In hind sight, here's what happened.  My "joke" with cardo somehow got recognized as a valid command to shut off all audio functions of the intercom.  John says he responded to my joke by saying "I'll talk to you" but I didn't hear that.  So all my announcements went nowhere and we missed lunch because I made a bad joke.

I looked on GPS again and found a couple towns 5 miles ahead and a gas station just off the parkway.  We pulled off and went there.  Someone told us about a cafe 9 miles west, but after we all gassed up, we decided to skip lunch and keep going to get the riding done before it got too much hotter.  It was already 100 degrees and the sun was really beating down.

We stopped by the Merriweather Lewis' grave site.  John announced on the intercom "ChatGPT said we need to stop here but I have no idea who this guy is".  We all were a bit stunned by that.  Karen said "Do you know who Lewis & Clark are" and John said yes.  We waited and John said nothing.  Then someone said "This is Lewis".  John said "Oh.  I didn't know he had a longer name".  We all laughed.

If you don't know, Lewis was governor of Louisiana but he was deeply in debt.  He left to go to Washington DC and try to to publish his memoirs to earn money.  Along the way he left the boat he was on and was shot.  It's unclear whether he was killed or committed suicide.

Monument to Meriweather Lewis

We stopped in the shade to see the Lewis monument

More parkway but now the sun is beating down and it's over 100

We stopped again at a "waterfall".  It was nice to get off the bike and the short walk was nice.  We crossed a few bridges over some barely running streams.  Maybe the "barely running" part of that should have been a hint, but the waterfall didn't really exist.  The water oozed over the rock and just clung to it and flowed down the rocks.

The slow running stream

Ron and Karen at the "waterfall" it's in the bushes somewhere

Now we were on the home stretch.  Just 20 miles to go, but it was hot.  I really miss the shade from the early mornings.

Still pretty but hot

Tennessee is far more open than the rest.  You can actually see horizon some times

Reaching the end of the Natchez Trace Parkway was un-eventful.  We just took an offramp and we were done.  We couldn't actually ride to the end because the final section is closed for repairs.  We followed the GPS through a series of surface streets for about 15 miles until we reached our hotel.  Everyone was very happy to be done.

Ron and Karen gave me back my intercom mount and said thanks.  We got checked in and moved our gear into rooms.

Ron was going to ride into Nashville and go buy a new intercom mount for Karen's helmet so he headed back out.

When I was done removing gear I got on the bike to park it.  On my way I saw a McDonalds next door and decided I wanted a cold drink so I rode over.  Once I was ordering I realized I also wanted something more than jerky to tide me over till dinner so I ordered a 6 piece nugget meal.  I only ate a few of the nuggets, but I ate ALL of the fries.

Back at the room, I started working on the blog.  We were all worried about Ron and Karen kept us informed.  After an hour, John and Angela decided to walk over to a nearby BBQ place to eat and I joined them.

I ordered way too much food.  I got brisket and a sausage with baked beans and green beans as my sides.  I ate about 1/3 and was full.  I got a box to bring it home and have snacked on it all night.

John and Angela also got some good bbq, but their order taker asked if it was their first time eating here  When they said yes, he gave them complementary banana pudding.  My server didn't ask me and I didn't know to tell them, so no banana pudding for me.  Nan will be disappointed.

I've been thinking about getting a new tripod and my friend Mike suggested I go to best buy and see what they have, so I excused myself before Karen and Ron arrived.  But when I got to the room, it was so nice and cool that I couldn't face another hour of hot riding.  So here I sit working on the blog and watching youtube.

Daily Miles: 203

Total Miles: 2700

Total drive time: 58h30m