I've been putting off sharing this story. I hardly know how to tell it. Once I made the decision to bail on the tour and fly home I had a lot of tasks to accomplish to make that happen.
- Book flight
- Rent a car to get to airport
- Ship bike
- Ship gear
I could have flown out of Tupelo but I thought it would be easier to drive to Nashville and fly from there. That way I would also be able to drive the rest of the Natchez Trace Parkway.
I found a local bike shop, the only one in town, who said they would box my bike up for me. I ordered the shipping on Bikeflights.com. I booked a car from Enterprise and arranged to have them pick me up at the bike shop. There was a UPS Store right next to the motel so shipping my gear would be easy.
I had lots of time on Friday morning so I first rode out to see Elvis' birthplace. As I got to the old downtown part of Tupelo there were actually some bike lanes, which continued all the way our to Elvis' place. The birthplace itself is a rebuilt replica of the house he was born in plus a big museum and gift shop. 47 years after his death Elvis is still the biggest thing to ever hit Tupelo.
The bike shop was about a 6 mile ride from Elvis' house. Google maps did just fine routing me.
So there I was, just a quarter mile from the bike shop. The last quarter mile of my 1,000 mile plus tour. Riding though a nice enough neighborhood. Oh, look, there's a dog that quietly snuck up and is running besides me. Ouch! that dog just bit me! It bit my calf and then ran back to its house and hid. It was not a big dog. Maybe a young pit bull. I started to go back after it but stopped. I wasn't afraid of the dog as much as it's owners. I didn't know what to do and I was in a bit of a daze so, with blood running down my leg, I just continued riding to the bike shop.
At the bike shop I was able to wash my wound and put some band aids on. They took my bike and we got the UPS labels printed so that was done. So I went next door to a pizza/sandwich place and got some lunch while I waited for the Enterprise car, which thankfully showed up on time.
Later that evening I went in to the ER. They did a lot of stuff, the last of which was to clean and bandage my wound. They contacted the police to go find the dog. I was able to provide a good description of both the dog and the neighborhood of the incident.
The next morning I called the police to follow up and an officer came to my motel room. He inspected my wound, and even did a good job bandaging it back up. He took my description and looked at the location I showed him on Google Maps, and went and found the dog. He called and told me he found the dog but the owners weren't home and I should call back. That was 4 days ago and I have called but to no avail. I think they've forgotten about it.
So now I'm home trying to imagine why this happened and still can't wrap my head around it. My injury is healing well. Maybe soon I can just forget the whole thing ever happened.