144: As I sat cycling

The end of a journey

They left the Trace the same way that they had entered it - seats on the saddle, feet clamped into the pedals - but they were not the same, could not have been the same: for who could travel the paths that had been trod for 10,000 years and not feel the rhythm of the soft steps of the Indians, the hoof beats of mules, not hear the creaking wagon wheels, not sigh along with the weary traveler longing for home; who could pass the signs and see the sites where promises were made and broken, where lives were lost and fortunes stolen, where treaties promised what they had to and then nations took it all away again and not come away with the knowing that all was as it had to be, that the land was all and the land would always be there, that the men and the mules and the boundary lines would come and go and come again and always, always, there would be that slight silver trace of madness called a road that ran like a thread in God's great tapestry, weaving the places and the people and the colors of the land together in one great majesty that lived before us and will be here when we are all just dust - dust in the ruts of the Trace.

                                        with apologies to you-know-who

Roger looks to the future

The day's report:  Port Gibson to Natchez, 49.9 miles/7090 to date

Tomorrow, we cross the Big Muddy - the Mississippi River, which we last saw some 3,400 miles ago in Minnesota. 

Our trip today