National Park Service police patrol the modern trace to make sure drivers stick to the 50 MPH speed limit and that commercial vehicles don’t wander on.
My first ride along the trace.
I first drove my motorcycle -- a 650-cc Triumph Trophy -- along the parkway’s entire length in 1965. At that time, the highway wasn’t complete. Frequent detours took me off the trace, onto local roads for a few miles, then back onto the highway.I was heading north from New Orleans on my first extended motorcycle trip. Just about everything about solo touring was new to me. I’d never been through the South. I’d never camped out with the motorcycle or maintained it on the road.
One evening, after traveling on the trace along its first 50 miles, I left the highway to buy groceries for dinner and gas-up the motorcycle. I returned to the trace and, after a few miles, found a secluded rest stop and picnic area.
I made dinner, worked on the motorcycle and wrote a few postcards. When it began to get dark, I pushed the bike out of site and pitched my tent. I’m sure the park police would have frowned on this move, but what the heck. It was September and the place was deserted. Actually, it was all quite peaceful.
The next morning, I packed up and got rolling at sunrise. I can still remember the clear, fresh air, the smell of dogwoods, the comfort of having a full tank of gas, and the enjoyment of winging along this beautiful, empty country road all by myself.
I spent most of the day looping in and out of points of interest along the trace.
The mysterious light in the woods.
Years later, my riding buddy, Don, and I were taking the trace north after visiting the Florida Keys. It was September and the campgrounds along the way were deserted. We stopped in one of the larger ones and started setting up camp for the night when two local motorcycle riders pulled in.We talked for quite a while when one of the riders suggested to his friend that perhaps they should show us “the light in the woods.”
We didn’t care to leave the campground to “see the light,” but we got the story behind it -- true or false.
It was a typical ghost story about a motorcycle rider and his girlfriend who, when riding through the woods at night, crashed and were killed. Now, as the story goes, if you park at night in a certain part of the woods near the trace, and wait in the dark, eventually you’ll see a single headlight winding through the trees. The light stops at a spot about a hundred feet away where the couple supposedly crashed and died.
