Tenn-Tom Scooter Adventure

 A while ago I found on the Internet what I thought was a nice marina with cabins and a restaurant located on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway (commonly referred to as the Tenn-Tom).  Oh, that might be a nice get-away for us!  Today we decided to ride the scooters up to the marina and check it out.  You can read more about the Tenn-Tom here.  The Tenn-Tom is a 234-mile (377 km) man-made U.S. waterway built in the 20th century from the Tennessee River to the junction of the Black Warrior-Tombigbee River system near Demopolis, Alabama. The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway links commercial navigation from the nation's midsection to the Gulf of Mexico.

Our plan was to leave fairly early and catch breakfast at a nearby restaurant and then go find this marina.  Best laid plans and all.... We woke up to temperatures in the 50's.  Ummmmmm, new plan!  We decided to have lunch at home and then take off on the scooters.  By the time we left the house, around 1:15 pm or so, it was in the high seventies and mesh gear was the order of the day.  Had we left at the original time I would have been wearing my heated jacket, lol!  Mesh was a good choice as the temperature hit 80 later in the day.

No surprise, we took the Natchez Trace Parkway heading north.  Maybe 35 miles later we took an exit that would eventually lead to our destination, Midway Marina.  We rode a pleasant two lane rural highway for about 20 miles and then turned onto a country lane.  Oh boy, that country lane was spectacular!  Full of pot holes and rough pavement with a gravel section thrown in for good measure.

I really enjoyed this road.  Zero traffic, a few homes and lots of enchantment!  This is slow adventuring and I love it!  After a few miles of zen scootering we found the Midway Marina.  Hmmmmm, not nearly as pleasant looking as their website portrays.  A bit run down and in need of some TLC.  We explored the marina on the scooters.

There are two swimming areas.  This is a pond with dock and swimming platform.  They also launch golf balls from the shoreline.  You can barely see the 100, 200 and 300 yard signs out in the distance.  Now that was fun, hahahahaha!

There is boat gas and a small store.

A permanent houseboat resident.

Guy's Place - the restaurant.  We didn't check out the restaurant but their online menu looks good!

Outside dining option on the river!

The cabins, all three of them, were awesome!  Here is a front view.

Back view with a nice porch overlooking the river.

And a shared outdoor fireplace.  Very nice!

It does appear they are working hard to upgrade the marina and make it into a real resort.  It's just not quite there yet.  This is the river beach for swimming.  They also had a volleyball or badminton sand court.

Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed in the marina and probably won't spend the $155 per night to stay in a cabin (two nights required on a weekend).  I imagine if you had a boat this would be a great place to stay.  Go out on the river all day and then retire to the lovely cabins and maybe stroll over to Guy's Place for a pleasant meal.  Yeah, we're scooterers not boaters, lol!

After perusing the marina we mounted our mighty steeds and rode the remainder of the country lane back to the rural highway.  On our way to the marina we spotted several boat locks and decided to take a stop at one and see what was there.  We were pleasantly surprised when we turned onto the road that leads to G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery Lock!

If you've been paying attention and actually clicked on the Tenn-Tom link provided above, you would know that there are a series of locks along the Tenn-Tom.  Every time we cross the Tenn-Tom we always look for barges.  I'd love to see a long barge going through the locks!

This is the view from the other direction of the locks.  We found a really sweet park at the foot of the locks with restrooms and grassy area along with parking.  Just wish they had a picnic table!  A beautiful place to stop.

Nothing really to say.  Just enjoy the quiet, solitude, water and engineering marvel.

You can see what a beautiful day it was!  Sunshine and 80 degrees.  Perfect!  After the visit to locks we tootled on down the rural highway to the Natchez Trace Parkway.  From there it's an easy, peasy ride home.  We did take a moment to enjoy a pull-out along the Trace.

This is Donivan Slough and has a small nature walk.

And that was that!  Twenty minutes and 112 miles later we were pulling into the driveway.  It was a delightful diversion and lovely scooter adventure.  I'm getting 84.5 mpg and Eric is getting about 77 mpg.  Such fun little scooters.  Puts me in a happy place.  Oh!  I forgot to tell you on our initial ride up the Trace we actually passed someone!  HA!  That doesn't happen on a scooter, made me laugh out loud 😂

Stay tuned because we having something interesting planned for tomorrow!

Cheers,

Cletha

Scooters to the Battlefield!

 It was rather gloomy and had rained earlier.  I had my doubts about taking a scooter ride today but Eric nagged me until I finally relented.  So I climbed into my riding gear, packed my wallet and phone on the scooter and looked at the sky.  Hmmmmm....probably 50/50 chance of getting wet.  We left shortly after lunch heading north on the Natchez Trace.  Sound familiar?  Well it should because we went to Houston!  Hahahahaha.  That little, unincorporated berg of Houston, MS that is not on the map.  The Dixie Country Store is only open on Saturday and we were so curious we simply had to return.  Dixie Country Store

It was actually quite busy.  They have lots of stuff to look at and sell old fashioned penny candy (that cost more than a penny), vintage label soda pops, snacks and hand packed ice cream cones!

Of the half dozen or so peeps in the store only Eric and I were wearing masks.  Not the customers nor the owners.  We didn't linger.  Just took some fun photos of the interior.  Eric purchased a Chick o Stick and a Salted Caramel Root Beer!

I almost titled this blog post "Deja Vu" because of our return to the Dixie Country Store but we had bigger plans than just the store.  We were headed for Brice's Cross Roads Battlefields!  The Battle of Brice's Cross Roads took place on June 10, 1864 not far from Baldwyn, MS.  Brices Cross Roads

Brice's Cross Roads is an excellent example of winning the battle but losing the war.  Of course we're talking about the American Civil War.  We live in an area rich with history from that time period and we were both anxious to find out more.  Our scooters were the perfect vehicle to explore this area.  Tootling along MS Highway 370 west of Baldwyn, MS we found our first monument to the famous battle. 

Within a hundred yards or so was the next monument!

Another 100 yards or so was monument #3.

No auto tour # for this stop.  We called it Auto Tour Stop 3 1/2 😃

So far all the monuments and turnouts were on the right hand side.  Then about 20 yards from the last monument was a larger monument on the left!  Squee!  Sudden left turn up a gravel drive to view this monument.

This is one of the larger battle field areas.

Next, almost directly across the street was Auto Tour Stop #4.

Just a very short hop up the road led us to Auto Tour Stop #5.

At this point I was getting VERY warm.  No, that's putting it politely.  I was sweating like a hooker in church!  Toooooooo HOT.  All those quick little stops, off the scooter, take photos, back on scooter and move 100 yards if that and repeat.   The sky had cleared quite a bit and the temperature was now hovering around 80 degrees.  Dang, should have worn the mesh gear!

We reached the Cross Roads where there was a cemetery and a large pull out with several monuments.  This is where we decided to shuck the jackets and helmets, take a break and take a walk to explore the history and graveyard.  Auto Tour Stop #6.

This is the main monument just off the cemetery.

Confederate mass grave......

A beautiful place to learn some of our Country's history.  Well done monuments that bring the story to life.  Peaceful cemetery where so many rest who died June 10, 1864.

We considered doing the 8 mile loop and then the Tupelo sites but we were both hot and sweaty  and it was nearing 4:00 pm.

We decided to head home and will return to finish the tour someday soon.  Our ride home was pleasant on quiet Mississippi back roads with lots of things to gawk at.  No rain at all!  We ended up on the Natchez Trace, made a stop at the visitor center to get a map and then headed for the barn.

I'm so glad Eric nagged me to go scooter exploring.  It was an absolutely wonderful, fantastic, fun day riding and exploring.  It didn't rain, we didn't get wet and traffic was light.  So much fun!  I learned a lot of Mississippi history and Civil War history.

The scooters?  Well, let's just say they make riding fun again!  Gravel?  No problem.  Dirt? No problem.  Grass? No problem!  Scooters make touring like this easy, peasy and big time fun!  We rode about 70 miles today and had a ball!

Cheers, my friends.  Thank you for following along.

Cletha