Sentimental Journeys

Northport to New Orleans, Day Six
My sixth day would take me from Donaldson on into New Orleans. I begin the day at the only eating place I can find open at 6 a.m. on a Sunday. The nice lady who waits on me is so impressed with what I’m doing she gives me breakfast free.

My first stop today will be Oak Alley. To me this is the most impressive plantation in the New Orleans and famous river road area. Sherry and I stayed here on one of our forays. I had left New Orleans one morning on my bike, of course. Once again, I had given her directions and a suggested departure time. This would allow us time upon her arrival to tour Oak Alley and see the spectacular oak trees leading into the property.

I arrived on schedule and waited for what I anticipated as a 3 p.m. Sherry arrival. By 6 p.m. I was worried. At 8 p.m. I called the New Orleans police to see if the car was still in the casino parking lot. Did you get that -- casino! By 10 p.m. Sherry had arrived -- some seven hours after she should have been there. I guess I'll never know the true story. Lost? Casino challenged?

After I got over being glad she was OK, I started getting mad. It was the maddest I had been since the "Trestle Incident." Some years ago Sherry let me and several friends off on Hurricane Creek near Brookwood, Alabama. She and another of the wives were then to place my car at the "takeout" point. We would canoe to the bridge, pick up the car and go home. When we got to the takeout -- no car. I once again feared for her safety. What had happened? Did some Deliverance-type guy prefer women over Ned Beatty?

I'm sure you've figured it out by now. Sherry had left the car over a train track. She and her friend had then driven home, crossing over the creek on their way. I left some of Sherry at our cottage at Oak Alley.

I proceed toward New Orleans on the west bank of the river with the intention of taking the Edgard ferry to the east bank to get into the city. As I approach the ferry I notice the sign -- Ferry closed Saturday and Sunday. No big deal. I'll take the next ferry. The Gretna ferry is also closed. I travel on to the Algiers ferry, trying to stay on the river road and out of major traffic.

The only person at the Algiers ferry is a homeless guy. Fortunately I am only early and the ferry is operating, allowing me to sprinkle the remaining ashes I brought into the Mighty Mississippi.

Lesson from Day Six: Check the ferry schedule.

My last day was 89 miles. My butt is the only sore part of me. It’s good to walk off the ferry and coincidentally see my friend Steve, who has arrived to give me a ride home. Under different circumstances this would have been Sherry waiting for me. No -- she would have been at the casino.

Thanks for joining me on my sentimental journey. I've got more journeys in store as I come to grips with living alone for the first time. And to developing a new "normal." In September it's the Blue Ridge Parkway. Then Cumberland Island. Then...

Oak Alley plantation near New Orleans

The levee trail

“Little” Emily selling pralines just as her grandmother
“Big” Emily has for 22 years

View from the Algiers ferry: St. Louis Cathedral in the

French Quarter

Northport to New Orleans, Day Five
I awake at the Inn on Day Five to a flat tire. Within the next two hours I have a total of three flats, leaving me with only one tube.

On this day I experience Louisiana swamp weather -- rain ALL DAY. I ferry back across the Mississippi at St. Francisville and travel through New Roads, across Bayou Gross Tete, through Plaquemine and am about to cross the highest bridge I have ever seen -- the Sunshine Bridge, ironically -- into Donaldsonville, Louisiana.

It's raining, I'm tired, there's no shoulder, it's rush hour. What idiot would bike on this bridge? The expansion joints are so wide you have to stop and walk your bike over them. The railing is so low that if a car hits you and doesn't kill you, the fall over the bridge rail will. Well, since I'm writing this you can tell I made it.

I get to the Best Western Motel just across the bridge. I walk in looking pretty forlorn. I can see by the expression on the desk clerk’s face that things aren’t going to get any better. I tell her I've had three flats, I've been in the rain all day and I've risked my life on that bridge...and she STILL has no rooms. She does call the town’s only other motel, which is another five miles down the road. I get back in the rain and move on.

This motel is old but clean. I go to a nearby restaurant (Cafe Lafourche) and have the best meal of the trip. Things have a way of working out. I covered 100 miles that day, although I did have to ride a little extra to get that century.

Donalsonville's claim to fame? It’s the home of Dr. F. M. Prevost, who performed the first Caesarian section in 1824. Maybe you can use that sometime on Jeopardy.

Lesson from Day Five: Same as Day One.

St. Francisville Inn

A plantation in New Roads, Louisiana

An old store in New Roads

F. M. Prevost, who performed the first Caesarian section in 1824,
lived in Donaldsonville, Louisiana.

Northport to New Orleans, Day Four
Day Four begins with crossing the Mississippi River on a two-lane bridge into Vidalia, Louisiana. After the bridge I take a left and roughly follow the route of the Mississippi River Trail. This is a series of roads that runs from New Orleans northward to the beginning of the Mississippi River in Minnesota. Maps of these areas are a little sketchy, and the MRT signs are not consistent enough to totally rely on.

These roads wind through some of the most desolate areas in the southeast. For the next 60 miles there is nothing but river and cotton fields. There are no stores, so you need to prepare yourself. With two water bottles I make it through and stop at a church for much-needed water on this warm August day. Praise the Lord!

I very much like crossing rivers on ferries. I try to plan bike rides in order to have this oportunity. I come to my first ferry as I travel from the west bank of the Mississippi River to today’s end in St. Francisville, some 91 miles for Day Four.

This is the second time I deviate from what I call the "80-Mile Rule." I am into doing century rides and I have always said that anytime you get to 80 miles you keep going to get your century.

Lesson from Day Four: Revise the "80-Mile Rule."

I stay the night at one of our (my) favorite inns -- the St. Francisville Inn. Sherry and I stayed here on the last trip she took. We were on our way back from M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston on May 2 when we deviated from the normal route to stay here. I leave a bit of Sherry at the inn.

I was in Gainesville, Florida, on BIKEFLORIDA when I got the frantic call from my sister-in-law, who told me a CAT scan showed a large tumor on Sherry’s kidney. This was March 22. Less than four months later Sherry would pass away on July 15. She would spend 42 days in the hospital and would go to West Alabama Hospice for another five days.

On the morning of her death I had arrived at the hospice center planning to do what I called the "Hospice Hundred" on the 1.7-mile track that ran around the complex. Ten miles into the ride the nurse came out onto the porch and flagged me down. Ten days later I returned and did that hundred miles.

Bridge over Mississippi River into Vidalia, Louisiana

My new friends, waiting on the school bus in Vidalia

Cotton fields alongside the desolate Mississippi Trail

The St. Francisville Ferry

Northport to New Orleans, Day Three
The Trace through Jackson has been complete less than a year. Now you don’t have to exit in Jackson and meander your way to the other side of the city to pick up the Trace again. I begin Day Three on this new section.

At Rocky Springs at Milepost 55 I stop at the first of five areas where I will leave a bit of Sherry. You know, Sherry would die (poor choice of words, but you know what I mean) if she knew I was sharing this information. Sherry was an extremely private person. Many of my friends never even met her. To them she was just a pleasant voice on the telephone saying, "Larry's out riding, but I'll tell him you called."

Throughout our life together Sherry let me and encouraged me to pursue all my interests. She was a "loner," and I think enjoyed this time to herself. For much of her life she suffered from clinical depression and many times preferred the "aloneness" to having me or anyone else around. A friend of mine described our lives together as parallel -- each of us doing things apart from the other. But Sherry was a pretty good SAG driver. Very low maintenance. When we went on a trip all she needed were several mystery paperbacks and a crossword puzzle book. If a casino was around that would even be better. I would try to arrange many of our excursions to include casinos for her and plenty of riding roads (or trails) for me.

Sherry was a bit time challenged, directionally challenged and "casino" challenged. One example of this I call the "Philadelphia Story." Once when we were at the Silver Star Casino in Philadelphia, Mississippi, I decided to start biking toward home with plans for her to pick me up along the way. I laid out the route for her and told her the time she needed to leave in order to find me after I had completed about a 60-mile ride.

I began looking back around mile 50. Of course I had padded the time, knowing her "challenges." I continued looking around for the next 50 to 70 miles. No Sherry. I was worried -- but what to do? I kept going and arrived at my home in Northport. As I was walking in the house I heard the telephone ringing. It was Sherry. In an enthusiastic voice she said, "Hey honey, you made it, I started winning, I'll see you in a few hours."

I was stunned to say the least. As I stood there speechless I was relieved she was OK and kind of excited I’d made a 140-mile bike trip.

My next stop on Day Three is in Port Gibson just off the Trace. This small town’s claim to fame is that during the Civil War General Grant crossed the Mississippi River here on his quest to begin the siege of Vicksburg. The town, he said, was "too beautiful to burn." Many antebellum homes and churches still exist in Port Gibson as a result.

My second stop to sprinkle ashes is at the Bernheimer Bed and Breakfast in Port Gibson. Just off to the side of the veranda in the azaleas. A fitting location. Afterward I sit and drink iced tea (the other universal drink) with the B&B owner and talk over good times.

Natchez is the end of Day Three, which took me some 115 miles. Natchez is a beautiful town with old homes, a casino and great restaurants. It kinda reminds you of a small New Orleans without the smell. The terminus of the Natchez Trace is here. After I pull into the Isle of Capri Casino Hotel I cajole with the desk clerk to give me the "players club rate" since my wife had been a casino player member. I hesitate when she asks if my wife is with me. After a moment I simply reply, "In spirit." She gives me the player's club rate.

Lesson from Day Three: Don't lie to the motel desk clerk.

The Bernheimer Bed and Breakfast in Port Gibson

Rocky Springs cemetery

An Episcopal church on Church Hill Road, north of Natchez

Inside Episcopal church

Northport to New Orleans, Day Two
I guess if the truth be known, staying in French Camp was really better. The town consists of a couple of stores and a few other buildings with the most notable one being French Camp Academy, a Christian-oriented boarding school. The academy also owns the bed and breakfast and the local cafe. Lucky for me because Debbie, who runs the B&B, volunteers to go to the only restaurant in town -- now closed -- to get me dinner. A turkey sandwich on homemade bread, potato soup, broccoli salad, Mississippi Mud pie and a quart of sweet iced tea -- one of the best meals I ever had!

French Camp is a beautiful small town located at Milepost 180 on the Natchez Trace, 180 miles from the town of Natchez. The Trace runs from Natchez to just south of Nashville, Tennessee -- a total of 442 miles. If you don't enjoy the Natchez Trace you just don't have a sense of history.

At first the trace was a series of hunters' trails. By 1733 the French knew the land well enough to map an Indian trail running from Natchez to the northeast. By 1785 Ohio River Valley farmers searching for markets began floating their crops and products down the Mississippi River to Natchez and New Orleans. They would then sell their flatboats for lumber and return by walking the crude trail that soon became a clearly marked path.

After the steamboat was invented in 1812, however, the trace was no longer the preferred return route north. Now this two-lane paved highway with relatively low traffic is one of the best bicycle routes in the country. As I travel south on the trace, I contemplate the fact that my southerly route is not "historically" accurate.

I pack light for this kind of touring: the riding clothes on my back (with plans to wash them out each day), a change of clothes for non-biking, four tubes, one extra tire, very few toiletries, "butt" butter (a critical article), a bike multi-tool (that I can do very little with), CO2 cartridges, a backup pump, tire tools, a paperback book, gel packs, camera and film, my always-present Celebrex for my arthritic hip and, outside of the usual biking fare, some of Sherry's ashes to leave at our memorable locations.

It became apparent early on that Sherry didn’t share some of my hobbies. Her first (and last) backpacking trip with me was in February of 1978, some nine months before our marriage. She often referred to this excursion as "the death march." And I cannot yet understand why she didn't enjoy the millet I served her in the evenings for dinner. I think it was here in White Oak Hollow of the Sipsey Wilderness Area of Bankhead National Forest that our verbal pre-nuptial agreement was developed. "Either _________ (insert any of the following in the blank: backpack, hike, canoe, camp or bicycle) with me or let me do these on my own." More often than not these were done on my own.

Earlier in August I returned to White Oak Hollow with my brother. It was the first of many planned pilgrimages in which I would leave a bit of Sherry at some of "our" places.

On Day Two of the trek to New Orleans I leave French Camp late after a great B&B breakfast. I realized sometime on my first day that I had failed to transfer my bike-changing tools from my smaller pack prior to beginning my ride. I'm not much of a bike mechanic and really need these to make changes should I flat. Fortunately I had not had a problem. There will not be a bike shop until Jackson, Mississippi, and I want to avoid the big city riding if possible. Luckily, as I approach Kosciusko (birthplace of Oprah Wynfrey, by the way) I spot the first cyclist I have seen on the trip.

After engaging David Oaks in conversation and being pitiful and whining some we return to his car and he takes me to his home and gives me some tire tools to get me through. You can count on the good nature of others -- particularly other cyclists!I stay on the Trace throughout the day and arrive at the Mississippi Crafts Center on the edge of Jackson, where I exit. In three miles I find the least expensive motel I can after completing an 87-mile day. The Econ-Lodge provides the essentials, which includes a pool. I go to the convenience store to get a few items and hit the pool with my goodies.

The motel is an example of cultural diversity at its best. Around the pool is a group of African-Americans, a table of East Indians, an area of "good ole boys," a group of Hispanics and a lone Caucasian cyclist. But there was a commonality that pulled us all together. Each person had before him a cold Bud Lite. During my time there I would make eye contact with each, smile and raise my beer in mock toast -- beer, the universal language.

Lesson from Day Two: Buy more beer!

Sherry, my wife of almost 28 years

I pack light for this kind of traveling: a change of clothes,
some bike repair essentials, toiletries and my camera.

Northport to New Orleans, Day One
By 10 a.m. the August heat had given way to morning coolness. I took a left onto Pickens County Road 30 in the Coal Fire community, leaving a busy U.S. 82 with its log trucks and reputed drug traffickers from the West Coast. I had departed my house at 6:30 this morning: got my credit card, walked out my door, got on my bike and embarked on a six-day circuitous route from Northport, just outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to New Orleans. I hoped the solitary trip would be healing rather than harmful.

A short six weeks ago – it seems like much longer – I lost my wife of almost 28 years to renal cancer. Sherry and I had covered much of the route ahead of me together. Me on a bicycle, and Sherry coming later in the car. She referred to herself as SAG support.

While I've taken numerous bicycle trips without Sherry, my most memorable were the ones we tackled as a team. I would leave early in the morning and she would meet me at day’s end at our chosen destination – NOT camping for Sherry. A NICE motel with even nicer dinner plans.

Although once an athlete having achieved an eighth-in-the-nation ranking as a tennis player in her early teens, Sherry now had little, make that no, interest in cycling with me. I adjusted quickly and decided all the better -- she can bring all the stuff!

My 24-year-old daughter, a mother of two, had obviously inherited my mother's penchant for worry and, better yet, laying on the guilt. As I told her of my travel plans, she grimaced and said, "Dad, I don't want to lose you too!" Well, the guilt trip didn't work and I continue my westward route with plans of spending night one in Mathiston, Mississippi, just short of the Natchez Trace and some 111 miles from home.

Much to my chagrin the only motel in town has a sign on the office door: "Closed until 10:30 pm." By 10:30 I had hoped to have been asleep for two hours! Apparently 10:30 is when "rooms-by-the-hour" business is best.

I try to decide whether to don my "pity" persona or "charm" persona as I go into the local florist shop for some help. A bit of both gets me some assistance contacting the French Camp Bed and Breakfast some 27 miles down the Natchez Trace. I arrive there at 6:30 p.m. -- exhausted and a 138-mile first day behind me.

Lesson from Day One: Make motel reservations in advance.