Author - Grant
Based In – Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Daunting Miles Driven - 40
Exhausting Miles Ridden - 40
Today’s Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/32017704@N03/sets/72157613578575662/
Our time in Hattiesburg was a deliberate attempt to get back onto the wagon after taking a step down from the exercise routine recently. So, following yesterday’s 16 mile walk, today we casually took on a 40 mile bike ride. I say casually because I, for one, assumed it would be a piece of cake but it turned out that too many pieces of cake recently turned it from a nice ride in the country to a semi-life changing experience.
The Long Leaf Trail is the result of the ingenious Rails-To-Trails project that pours an ocean of concrete over a disused rail track that runs from Central Hattiesburg to Prentice transforming it from a Hobo’s toilet to a nature trail in one move. We drive each other nu
ts when it comes to cycling together for reasons that have already been well covered in this blog (I am a tyrant and Kate has the leg strength of a drunk child) so we came up with a genius plan basically to avoid each other for the duration of the ride. I dropped her in Hattiesburg to ride North whilst I drove to Prentice to ride south. Mentally this was really damaging for me because you really notice how far 40 miles is (and how undulating the landscape is) when you have to drive it first. I became aware that this was going to be a lot tougher than I originally estimated after about 15 miles when I was already out of snacks and realised I was looking at the cows in the surrounding fields as if they were already tattooed with the butchers dotted lines. Surely they wouldn’t miss a rib to feed a brother in need and I’ve been watching enough Man vs Wild recently to know how to strike up a fire from a leaf and a tooth filling. Anyway, fast forward three hours and the Welcome to Hattiesburg Water Tower, Kate and, most importantly, the car were all very welcome sights for sore thighs. I loved comparing notes over lunch (extremely tasty wraps and soups from Roly Poly) where we both were convinced that the wind was in our faces (the truth is that there was not an ounce of wind that day) and we both saw completely different things…Kate even hallucinated a Llama Farm that clearly doesn’t exist.
Before starting this trip we heavily debated the possibility of travelling via RV or trailer rather than having to find dog friendly hotels everywhere. Furthermore I’ve secretly been a little bit obsessed with the world of RV’ing that no crappy Robin Williams movie could satisfy so today we hit up a showroom to see what our theoretical options would be. First up was the bad news that all Bridget can tow is a glorified tent on wheels (nicknamed the “pikey pop-up”…well, by us anyway). Next option was to explore full on RVs and it soon became clear that the only ones we would seriously consider living in were the size of Guns ‘n’ Roses tour busses. The downside with these apartment-on-wheels is that they also need a car to be towed behind in order to explore towns which would result in us dragging a half kilometre convoy across
the country that would leave a monster carbon footprint (and when I say that, clearly I really mean that I am too tight to spend that much on gas). They’re amazing machines but it looks like we’re sticking with Bridget and La Quinta…at least until we hit some of the bigger national parks like Yosemite.
Our hotel is opposite a warehouse looking building with a cryptic and undescriptive neon “Ropers” sign that just begs Googling. So Kate did. The result; it’s a line-dancing bar. Jackpot. And Thursday is $2.50 a beer and free burger and hot-dog night. Mega-Millions Jackpot. The place was a bit quiet to start off but we put in the brave commitment to chug beers for a few hours and it totally paid off as the line-dancing broke out and the evening unfurled into an extraordinary people watching e
vent. The professional line-dancers (meaning the people who actually knew the moves) were really impressive but the real entertainment was provided by the likes of the 65 year old lady dancing deeply inappropriately or the midget wrestlers on their night off from the circus or the young beatch who just flitted around the dance floor taking the piss out of everyone else…all to the sounds of either hip-hop or comedy country (songs like “Honky Tonk Pe Donk-a-Donk”). Platinum entertainment. The worst part of the night was returning to the room to find that Molly had peed all over the bed which was weird as we’d only left her for a few hours.
Based In – Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Daunting Miles Driven - 40
Exhausting Miles Ridden - 40
Today’s Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/32017704@N03/sets/72157613578575662/
Our time in Hattiesburg was a deliberate attempt to get back onto the wagon after taking a step down from the exercise routine recently. So, following yesterday’s 16 mile walk, today we casually took on a 40 mile bike ride. I say casually because I, for one, assumed it would be a piece of cake but it turned out that too many pieces of cake recently turned it from a nice ride in the country to a semi-life changing experience.
The Long Leaf Trail is the result of the ingenious Rails-To-Trails project that pours an ocean of concrete over a disused rail track that runs from Central Hattiesburg to Prentice transforming it from a Hobo’s toilet to a nature trail in one move. We drive each other nu
ts when it comes to cycling together for reasons that have already been well covered in this blog (I am a tyrant and Kate has the leg strength of a drunk child) so we came up with a genius plan basically to avoid each other for the duration of the ride. I dropped her in Hattiesburg to ride North whilst I drove to Prentice to ride south. Mentally this was really damaging for me because you really notice how far 40 miles is (and how undulating the landscape is) when you have to drive it first. I became aware that this was going to be a lot tougher than I originally estimated after about 15 miles when I was already out of snacks and realised I was looking at the cows in the surrounding fields as if they were already tattooed with the butchers dotted lines. Surely they wouldn’t miss a rib to feed a brother in need and I’ve been watching enough Man vs Wild recently to know how to strike up a fire from a leaf and a tooth filling. Anyway, fast forward three hours and the Welcome to Hattiesburg Water Tower, Kate and, most importantly, the car were all very welcome sights for sore thighs. I loved comparing notes over lunch (extremely tasty wraps and soups from Roly Poly) where we both were convinced that the wind was in our faces (the truth is that there was not an ounce of wind that day) and we both saw completely different things…Kate even hallucinated a Llama Farm that clearly doesn’t exist.Before starting this trip we heavily debated the possibility of travelling via RV or trailer rather than having to find dog friendly hotels everywhere. Furthermore I’ve secretly been a little bit obsessed with the world of RV’ing that no crappy Robin Williams movie could satisfy so today we hit up a showroom to see what our theoretical options would be. First up was the bad news that all Bridget can tow is a glorified tent on wheels (nicknamed the “pikey pop-up”…well, by us anyway). Next option was to explore full on RVs and it soon became clear that the only ones we would seriously consider living in were the size of Guns ‘n’ Roses tour busses. The downside with these apartment-on-wheels is that they also need a car to be towed behind in order to explore towns which would result in us dragging a half kilometre convoy across
the country that would leave a monster carbon footprint (and when I say that, clearly I really mean that I am too tight to spend that much on gas). They’re amazing machines but it looks like we’re sticking with Bridget and La Quinta…at least until we hit some of the bigger national parks like Yosemite.Our hotel is opposite a warehouse looking building with a cryptic and undescriptive neon “Ropers” sign that just begs Googling. So Kate did. The result; it’s a line-dancing bar. Jackpot. And Thursday is $2.50 a beer and free burger and hot-dog night. Mega-Millions Jackpot. The place was a bit quiet to start off but we put in the brave commitment to chug beers for a few hours and it totally paid off as the line-dancing broke out and the evening unfurled into an extraordinary people watching e
vent. The professional line-dancers (meaning the people who actually knew the moves) were really impressive but the real entertainment was provided by the likes of the 65 year old lady dancing deeply inappropriately or the midget wrestlers on their night off from the circus or the young beatch who just flitted around the dance floor taking the piss out of everyone else…all to the sounds of either hip-hop or comedy country (songs like “Honky Tonk Pe Donk-a-Donk”). Platinum entertainment. The worst part of the night was returning to the room to find that Molly had peed all over the bed which was weird as we’d only left her for a few hours.After such an action packed day, we’re looking forward to a quiet one tomorrow as we head to Alabama. I don’t know what the agenda is but I do know that any moving we doing will be at the expense of petrol rather than muscle power as the ones we have thoroughly deserve a rest.
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