Pat and Sari's Honeymoon Bike Ride

Sunday, March 30, 2008
Prentiss, MS to Magnolia, MS
61 miles (1416 total miles)

Today's ride went quickly and smoothly - yes, the roads are getting flatter! We left at 7:15 this morning and arrived at the campsite at 2:30, going a total of 60 miles (plus another mile touring the town). We started out on the divided highway we were on most of Friday, going into Prentiss, MS, but left it after about 15 miles, turning onto smaller roads, Rt. 27 and then Rt. 44, where we were for most of the rest of the day. Today being Sunday, there was much less traffic, no logging trucks and few other trucks. Although we missed the pine smells from the logging trucks, they were more than made up for by the smells from all the azaleas and wisteria we passed today. It seemed that every house along the route had several large azalea bushes and most had wisteria, too. Wisteria was also growing wild in several trees along the route. The other advantage of not having trucks was that we could hear the birds much better, also.

Today was fairly uneventful. We passed by or through a few small towns along the way, but saw almost no places to stop at any of them. We stopped a couple of times to have some trail mix, and I was beginning to lose all hope of getting any kind of meal today, when finally, 40 miles after we left Prentiss, we came upon a Country Kitchen out of nowhere. This was the kind of place where, for about $7, they fill up your plate with all kinds of delicious home-cooked food, including the best peach cobbler I've ever eaten. It was just about noon and the place was filling up with folks who had clearly just been to church, all dressed up in their Sunday best. We clearly didn't blend in well, but the folks were all friendly and asked us about our trip, wishing us well on our travels.

After that, it was a quick 20 miles to our final destination of Magnolia, MS. We toured around the town, found a Subway where we ate dinner, and scoped out some possible breakfast places for tomorrow. We only saw one other camper at the site, but he was very friendly. We updated the website, took showers, and will soon be off to bed.