Day 4: Sunday

Dst: 53.88 mi
Avg: 13.0 mph
Mx: 23.6 mph
Tm: 4:08:39

I woke up, as usual, and prayed my Breviary.  Then we celebrated Mass in the motel before going down the hall for a nice continental breakfast: raisin bran, yogurt, orange juice, an apple, and two tiny muffins.  It was so good after all the fast food breakfasts!

A friendly couple visited with us and offered to take our picture before we started out.  We lubed our chains and hit the road. Before leaving Wiggins, though, I couldn't help but stop and pick up at least one geocache in Mississippi. Then I headed south on highway 49 with all the traffic (even on a Sunday) down to Saucier, where we ate lunch at Subway.

Again, today, we are off the ACA route for the purposes of finding lodging.

After we turned east onto Bethel Road, it was nice and quiet.  The roads were great and there was little or no traffic.   For the most of the rest of today’s ride, we were pedaling through the DeSoto National Forest.  It looks like a great place to ride ATVs, dirt bikes, or to ride mountain bikes.  There seemed to be designated areas for these activities in the forest.

I was curious about the P.O.W. camp entry sign for the forest, but couldn’t find much on the Internet, aside from the fact that this site near Saucier was associated with Camp Shelby, a military post to the north of this area. During WWII German soldiers of the Afrika Corps that had been captured were detained at Camp Shelby and, perhaps (I'm guessing), at this site as well. It's strange to think of German Nazis captured in Africa being shipped to a POW camp all the way in Mississippi.

I really enjoyed these miles through the forest.  It was peaceful, calm, cool, gloomy, but nice riding weather in the 50s.  I noted how the forest had been burned by fire.  The tall evergreens were doing okay, but all the underbrush was burned.  One side of the road had rebounded, but the other had not. 

From this burned ground was sprouting little trees, a sort of explosion of life.  It made me think, on this Sunday, of death and resurrection… hope for eternal life, and Jesus Christ.  How great that God’s creation can raise our minds to such higher things, when I can rid myself of the distractions of my speedometer, maps, the wind, derailleur, or the time of day.  A microcosm of salvation, right in the forest.

Soon I headed south on Old Biloxi Road.  I was worried there would be heavy traffic as I turned south, but it wasn’t bad until I arrived in Ocean Springs.  Then it was busy.  I crossed a drawbridge over water under Washington Avenue.  Then, east on 90/Bienville Boulevard to the Motel 6.

During my last miles it rained a bit and was cool, so I was happy to get into the room.  We had supper at a Chinese buffet next door, watched a movie on cable, and prepared for tomorrow’s trip to Dauphin Island.  It looks neat—an island in the Gulf of Mexico!