After leaving the big city of Little Rock, we landed in the small, rural town of Houston, Mississippi for a couple of days of recharging -- and cycling of course! We stayed at a small "mom and pop" motel that was highly ranked on Tripadvisor. Not fancy but clean, and a good place to relax. We liked that they'd kept their vintage sign even after adding a more modern one. I think the "free wi-fi in rooms" was a later addition to the sign, don't you? On our first full day in Houston, we rode the entire Tanglefoot Trail. This paved trail is Mississippi's longest rail-trail, so that's what brought us to this area. The start of the trail was just a short 1.5 mile ride from the motel. We finally had shorts weather again -- gotta love the south in October! The trail took us through or near several small towns, including Pontotoc. When we started seeing kudzu growing all over everywhere, we really knew we were back in the southeast! The trail runs from Houston at its southern terminus to the small city of New Albany at its northern end for a total of 43.5 miles one way. New Albany's downtown is absolutely charming. We'd read about this amazing bakery in New Albany called Sugaree's, and it wildly exceeded our high expectations. We've been to a lot of bakeries over the past year, and this one certainly ranks up in the top couple we've had the pleasure of visiting. In addition to standard cases, they also have a frozen case with cake, gelato, and the most amazing ice cream sandwiches. Oh my! It was incredibly hard to choose, but here are the other goodies we ended up with. Sugaree's had the most beautiful outside decor. There was a sign up proclaiming them the winner of the downtown beautification project. We could certainly see why! Also on the main street, I discovered this charming Italian eatery. I love anything with a Boston Terrier logo! Here's Barry at the final trail mile marker as we turned around to head back to Houston. Half-way done! Loved this fall decor with a bike theme in someone's yard. Very creative! At 90 miles total, this was my longest ride of the year. It was a long but fun day. Barry did some extra (of course) to get in his 11th century (100+ miles) this year. Whatta guy!
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Forty-ninth for us, that is. Over the years, we'd managed to make it to every other US state except Alaska (understandable; it's awfully far from the eastern/midwestern US) and Arkansas, of all things. Kinda strange, huh? We thought so too. So on this cross-country trip, we were determined to get to Arkansas. Alaska would have to wait for another time. We stayed in downtown Little Rock, which was much busier and more bustling than we imagined. We wanted to ride the Arkansas River Trail and also see the Clinton Library, so we had a good location for that. On our first evening in town, we checked out the city lights from our hotel parking deck. The Bank of America building was all decked out for Breast Cancer Awareness month. The next morning dawned bright and sunny, though a bit chilly; still, a fine October day for our bike ride. We had to negotiate the downtown streets, many of which are one-way, but made it over to the river path. We rode over to the Clinton Presidential Library and bridge. Pretty impressive! The Clinton Library is very modern in design and quite wide. I had to take two photos to get it all in! I would have enjoyed taking a tour, but by the time we were through with our bike ride, we'd missed the last tour of the day. Maybe another time.... Here I am on the river trail. It's a really lovely paved trail if you're ever in the area. There are several bridges over the Arkansas River, including the "big dam bridge", which we rode over. It was very windy up on the bridge! After riding west on the trail to the end, we continued riding on a nice bike lane. Here's where we turned around to begin riding back to downtown Little Rock. Once back on the trail, we rode back to downtown on the south side of the river.
We enjoyed our brief visit in Arkansas, but we were glad to escape our busy downtown hotel and head to rural Mississippi the next day. Stay tuned! Making our way south from Durango, we spent four days and five nights in one of our favorite US cities, Albuquerque, New Mexico. We love the bicycling there, but this time we were also excited to be there during the International Balloon Fiesta. We'd never seen anything like it and had heard how great it was supposed to be. But before we show you photos of all the dazzling balloons, we thought we'd show you some of the other things we saw and did during our stay and save balloons for the next post or two. Okay? Okay! On our very first ride on the Paseo del Bosque Trail, a real gem of a paved trail that is one of the reasons we love riding in this city so much, I heard a rustling in the brush right as I entered the trail from the road. I looked over, and what did I see but two coyotes, very close and seemingly unfazed by me. Woah! I've never seen them so close before. They wandered off, but not until Barry had snapped a couple of photos. Here's some more wildlife we saw while pedaling the trail. This is either a Cooper's or a Sharp-Shinned Hawk; they look very similar. We always see a Roadrunner -- or two -- while riding the trail. One one of our days in town, after viewing balloons in the morning, we headed south on a couple of different paved trails and checked out the University of New Mexico; the first time we'd seen that. Here's one of the trails we rode on to get there. The campus is large and fun to ride around in. Here's some colorful art we ran across while riding around campus. And a fountain.... This mural was not on campus but right outside it. Also right outside campus boundaries is the Frontier Restaurant, an Albuquerque tradition we just found out about on this trip from our farmer friend Jennifer from Walla Walla! She highly recommended we check it out, and we are so glad we did. We didn't have a bike lock so had to settle for a couple of their world-famous cinnamon rolls to go. Cinnamon rolls in tow, we headed back across the street to campus, where we devoured them. They were so amazingly yummy! Here's another of the trails we rode, right along I-40. Fall foliage just starting to show up here alongside the Paseo del Bosque. And a cool bike sculpture along the Paseo del Bosque in memory of an Albuquerque cyclist. As you probably noticed from the photos above, we didn't have the typical bright blue skies and sunshine Albuquerque is known for. The remnants of a Pacific tropical storm were passing through, bringing us mostly overcast skies and some rain while we were in the city. That was too bad, but we still had off and on sunshine peeking through, including one time when we rode into Old Town. Here are some of the many sculptures outside the Albuquerque Museum. I'm always up for a little silliness! More sculptures outside the museum.... I love the beautiful tile mosaic art on this entrance to Old Town. And the dried chile peppers are cool too! We stopped in at "La Choco" for a sweet treat -- toffee and Green Chile fudge! It was delicious but pricey. Old Town is very tourist-oriented and prices reflect that. The fudge actually tasted kind of like gingerbread -- yum. This tiny cottage right by Old Town really caught my eye. It's amazing how the colors perfectly echo those in the morning glories. I think they planted the flowers first, then painted the cottage trim to match, don't you? To get to and from Old Town, we took this "Bicycle Boulevard" right off of the Paseo del Bosque. Its low speed limit and lighter traffic makes it a good connector road for cyclists going to and from the bike path. Of course a trip to Albuquerque wouldn't be complete without a visit to our favorite restaurant, the Range Cafe. I still owe my friend Becky back in North Carolina for telling us about this place a couple of visits back. We haven't missed it since! This timeI had some really delicious salmon served with a potato puff and snow peas. I also had a cup of butternut squash soup, while Barry started with a bowl of the same. Mmmmmm.... Barry kept his dinner light with a green and fruit salad topped with chicken breast -- he was saving room for dessert! They are known for their desserts and have a huge case that makes it nearly impossible to choose. Here's what he saved room for -- this amazing warm brownie sundae topped with lovely homemade ice creams, chocolate and caramel sauces, and nuts on top. Crazy decadent, no?! I went "light" with Key Lime Pie...so good. I was already full when it came, so Barry got some too! Despite less than perfect weather, we surely had a great time in Albuquerque once again...and you know what comes along after the rain, don't you? A double rainbow, that's right! Stay tuned for balloons, balloons, balloons!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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