Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Day 8: Hohenwald to … Nashville!



Our last day. Hard to believe our adventure was almost over. It was very foggy when Bill served us breakfast this morning: bacon, eggs and pancakes. Yum! But shortly after we got on the road, it burned off and we had a beautiful, sunny day. Last night the storm really kicked in, with rain and high winds. This part of the Trace was certain pretty, but the best colors were behind us. Lots of leaves were on the ground.

Right after we started, we stopped at Fall Hollow, which was a pretty waterfall. We saw another a short ways up. Our server last night told us it was downhill all the way to Nashville, but it seemed mainly uphill to us. The entire ride was very enjoyable, though. The only disappointing part was the end. Everything says the Trace is 444 miles long. At the southern terminus, there’s a rock with a plaque that notes it’s the southern terminus. We’d taken our photos by it at the start. So naturally, we wanted a photo of us at the northern terminus and also mile marker 444. But neither exists.

Unlike the southern terminus, there’s nothing marking the northern terminus other than a big sign saying it’s the Natchez Trace. Weird, since there were loads of signs we’d passed over the 444 miles that said “Northern Terminus 180 miles” or whatever. Even stranger, the mile markers stopped at 442. Right after mile marker 442, the road split three ways, and we didn’t know which way to go. A quick look on my iPhone showed we should take the center route, which dumped us off on McCrory Lane. Still no markers.

Loads of people told us we needed to stop at the famous Loveless Café when we finished the Trace. It was just past McCrory Lane, so we biked there and asked some café employees if we’d missed a terminus sign, but they didn’t know of one. So that was too bad. We ended up having some ladies take a photo of us by the Loveless Café sign as our “northern terminus” picture.

Overall, though, we loved our adventure on the Trace, and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys cycling, beautiful scenery, history and meeting loads of friendly folks.