What's next?

Our ride to Pensacola last summer was a smashing success. Things went precisely to plan. Contrary to my usual practice, I did not plan too much, did not reach beyond our grasp, did not overdo. We were lucky in weather, mechanics and traffic.

So why push it?

Because I can.

There's a long stretch of focused, concentrated effort ahead at work, but at the end is the promise of spring break in mid-March. It got me plotting for something to focus on.

Avery and I pedaled the Old Spanish Trail at the end of June, a fake name used as marketing to sell a contrived route -- though its false claims to an explorers' provenance does not diminish its actual historic standing as a harbinger of interstate auto traffic.

Now I turn my eyes to another expedition, this one with more legitimate claims to an historical legacy that reaches back beyond the internal combustion engine. Traveling the Natchez Trace Parkway's run through Mississippi has plenty to recommend it, not least the fact it represents, as conceived, a ridiculous overreach and almost certainly impossible to repeat the good fortune of this year's trek.

Why not?