The Trace and Poverty Point

We are starting this post while still on the move.  We will have covered 200 plus miles at 50 mph speed limit on The Natchez Trace on Wednesday.  It has been a gray day with our high temperature being all of 40 on the heels of the front that brought all the rain and storms last night and today's persistent drizzle.  There has been so much rain that the earth has soaked up all it can and all the streams are overflowing their banks and there is standing water in all the low spots.  Quite a few trees have fallen across the Trace because of the wind and super-soaked earth not being able to support the trees.  Old dead trees so soaked with water just snap off part way up the trunk.  We have seen only a handful of deer, one great blue heron, and lots of turkeys.  We will exit the Trace at Jackson.

 

Jackson is a crazy city with heavy traffic and pot holes.  We did our shopping and beat it out of town as quickly as we could.

 

Crossing the Mississippi at Vicksburg.  

 

There was lots of wind once we were in the open in Louisiana.  Now we are settled in at Poverty Point Reservoir State Park, where the first sign that greets you warns of alligators...do not approach, tease, or feed!  There are also bear warnings, but no bear boxes for food at the sites.  This park caters mostly to fishermen; a couple of campers beside us brought along their bass boats with monster outboard motors.  The reservoir itself must not be very deep; there are peninsulas built out into the lake with up-scale vacation homes.

 

After days piling on the miles, we get to be still for a few days.  We plan to get to the Poverty Point World Heritage Site (a Native American archaeological site), but it may end up waiting until Saturday when we transition to the next camp ground.  The site is 14 miles north; biking is out of the question because the roads don't have bike lanes and it is a busy highway.  We will have to think about it!

 

Thursday at the campground and the sun is shining with the outside temp at 56 at 12:30.  There a still plenty of standing water but with the ground soaked, it has nowhere to go except to evaporate over time.

 

 

Thursday we got out for a short bike ride along the reservoir.  The wind was fierce and we felt as though we were climbing uphill, not riding on the flat.  The reservoir was loaded with egrets, coots, and white Pelicans.

 

On Friday the temperature barely got to 50, but the sun was strong and the wind was less.  We hear birds here, lots of mockingbirds along with the Brown Thrasher below.  His song is really quite something.  We have a small tree right beside the camper where we have been seeing female Downy woodpecker many times a day.

 

We got out for a 10+ mile ride on Friday, gradually increasing our ride length while Marty's bum gets used to her new bike and it's much firmer seat. Again we went out along the reservoir and there was considerably less wind.  We saw hundreds of coots, more white Pelicans, one egret, a couple of herons, lots of Canadian Geese in pairs (nesting) as well as some white and black ducks we never got to identify.

Before dinner, we went out on a short trek on the campground trails.  Nice, but underused.  Below, is none other than David on the first part of the trail.  

Low warm sunlight on the Cyprus trees.

Northern Mockingbird of which there are many and we think they are building nests now.

Tomorrow we will leave in the morning and, while we are in the area, will visit Poverty Point World Heritage site.  On tomorrow's post we'll pass along our impressions.