Day 4: 3/23/22: Starkville, MS to Jeff Busby Campground

 As we were breaking camp today, our neighbor who is in a camper walked over and said, "I don't want to be nosey, but what are y'all doing?  We were in a tornado warning yesterday and y'all came up putting up tents". We told him about our trip. He said he could understand doing that on a nice sunny day, but not yesterday.  We explained you just have to take the good with the bad on a bicycle trip.  You've just got to deal with the elements.

The morning air was quite cool this morning and we had a headwind heading into downtown Starkville.  We rode through the Mississippi State University (MSU) campus enroute to downtown.  My father-in-law graduated from MSU.  I wonder if he recognizes some of the sites in the pics below.

Cleanup of a large tree that I'm assuming blew down during the storm yesterday had one street on the campus closed (pic below).

 

Below is a pic of a nice pedestrian/cyclist bridge that crosses over a major road to connect the downtown district to MSU.

ki

Few pics around downtown Starkville below.

Pic of me and Scott in front of the Starkville Cafe, where we ate breakfast.

While standing outside the cafe a guy named Andrew  approached us and asked about our trip.  As we were talking, it came up that he worked for the Federal Court.  I asked him what he did, and he said he was a probation officer for the Northern District of Mississippi, and started there in 2009.  I told him I am a retired federal probation officer, and worked for North Mississippi from 1994-2000.  He said he had seen my name on documents.  Small world.  Pic below of me and Andrew.

We spent some time in Starkville doing laundry, and Bob took his bike to a bicycle shop and they repaired his rear derailleur.

After Starkville, we all 3 rode together for about 7 miles and then there was a decision to be made.  Turn left and ride on country roads or go straight to ride on U.S. Hwy 82.  Scott and I chose the back roads route and Bob took the highway route.  Both routes had low traffic.  

Below are a couple of pics of Scott on a back road and on the Natchez Trace Parkway.

We arrived at the Jeff Busby Campground on the Natchez Trace (pic below), with Bob getting there about 30 minutes before we arrived.  Busby is a free campground, first come first serve, that accepts both RVs and tents.  It's a very nice campground that has cold water and flush toilets. We met several nice campers at the campground.

Total miles today: 42.96