The Second Sunday Drive, Day 34

 

A Kudzu Covered Landscape

Western Mississippi

Many years have passed, the trav'lers gay,
Repeat the tune along the highway;
And every voice that sings the glad refrain
Re-echoes from the mountains to the fields of growing grain.

--Music by Colonel Sanford C. "Sandy" Faulkner, lyrics by a committee!

 To hear Bill Monroe play the Arkansas Traveler, click here.

Now the lyrics above are not the lyrics I learned as a child, although under the circumstances they seemed appropriate.  For you old fogies, like me, who remember things a little differently, the words I learned went:

Oh, once upon a time in Arkansas,
An old man sat in his little cabin door
And fiddled at a tune that he liked to hear,
A jolly old tune that he played by ear.

  On Monday evening, Yelp had helped us find Stromboli's and, as I noted in my previous post, the best pizza ever (even Kevin thought so).  Tuesday morning, however, was not as promising.  The earliest opening I found on Yelp was 11:00 and that was way too late for us to have breakfast.  We asked at the front desk as we checked out, and were given the options of Huddle House and Waffle House.  The desk clerk had a definite preference, and for the second day in a row we had breakfast at Waffle House, albeit in a different state than the day before.

After breakfast, Kevin met with the owner of MFJ Enterprises, and filled the back seat of the Saab with catalogs from that amateur radio accessories manufacturer.  He also put in a plastic bag with two MFJ coffee mugs--something I learned only when I heard what I thought was glass breaking behind me.  I had visions of West Virginia wine staining the carpeting, but no, it was the empty coffee mugs, and they didn't even break.

 

Cotton Fields, West Central Mississippi

The last time I traveled through Mississippi, I was riding the train.  In 1999, I attended the winter convention of New Image International which was held in Birmingham, Alabama.  As I had some vacation time saved up and had never ridden the train in the United States, I decided to take Amtrak to Birmingham and back.  My choice of itinerary meant taking the Empire Builder from Whitefish, Montana to Chicago, Illinois, the same train on which I started this Second Sunday Drive.  But the winter conference was in the middle of January, and there was no leaving the station once we got to Chicago.  Way too cold. At Chicago I boarded the City of New Orleans and headed south across Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and finally Louisiana.  There was an overnight in New Orleans, which troubled Amtrak no end.  When I booked my tickets, the clerk kept trying to change my mind.  From Chicago I should take the Capitol Limited to D.C., then change to the Southern Crescent to reach my final destination of Birmingham.  When I insisted that I wanted to take the City of New Orleans, the clerk despaired.  "You'll have to spend the night in New Orleans."  I replied that there are worse things than spending a night in New Orleans, and indeed changed my itinerary to spend two nights in the Big Easy.

The City of New Orleans crosses Mississippi on a north-south route, and you see a lot of the state.  Even in the wintertime, you cross the state during daylight hours, and I have to say that my impression of the Magnolia State was not good.  This was the ugliest place I've ever seen.  From New Orleans to Birmingham, I took the Southern Crescent, at that time an older train where the cars were only one level and the seating was just above the rails.  (Both the Empire Builder and the City of New Orleans used newer, two level cars where you rode one level above the tracks.)  The route took us across Lake Pontchartrain and into Mississippi near the town of Picayune, then past Hattiesburg and Meridian before crossing into Alabama.  I felt that I had seen quite a bit of Mississippi and was not impressed.  It didn't help that our train broke down somewhere between Hattiesburg and Meridian and we sat in silence on the tracks for about half an hour.

Crossing the state by car, I was able to see a different, and greener, side of Mississippi.  Can't say that I have a much better impression of that state, but c'est la vie.  The one question I can't answer is how anyone lives in such a hot and humid climate.  When we asked natives, the response we got was invariably, "This isn't so bad."

 

The Mississippi River

Helena, Arkansas

We turned off U.S. 82 heading north on Interstate 55.  Past Batesville (of the Batesville Casket Company), we left the Interstate and drove west on Mississippi 315 until we reached the Big Muddy, the Mississippi River itself.  Crossing into Arkansas, we stopped at the Arkansas Visitor Center at Helena where I was offered a packet of brochures, maps and advertisements for various attractions throughout "the Natural State."  When I told the hostess that we were headed for Eureka Springs, she expressed amazement that we would try to get so far in one day--undoubtedly dismayed that we wouldn't be spending more time (and money) as Arkansas travelers.

Kevin did have another stop in mind.  A ham radio shop in DeWitt, Arkansas had caught his attention on the web, so from Helena we drove south and west to the seat of Arkansas County.  Over the phone, the shop owner told Kevin that he would probably be disappointed by his store, and when we got there, we found a small ham business tied in with a satellite tv operation.  While Kevin talked with the store owner, I stayed in the car reading.  By the time Kevin returned to the car, it was pushing 2 p.m. and I was past being ready for lunch.  Turning to Yelp again, I found a café across from the county court house, and that's where we headed.  The café was closed, as was every other food establishment we saw.  A UPS delivery man explained that he carried his lunch with him because "These folks eat lunch at noon, and then the restaurants close until dinner time."  Out by the main highway we found a Sonic and a Subway, and opted for the Subway because I wasn't ready to bring food into my new car.

 
Driving Interstate 40 into the Ozarks

From DeWitt, we drove north through  Stuttgart, catching Interstate 40 which let us skirt Little Rock as we continued north and west across the state.  Bypassing Conway, Russellville and Clarksville, we left the interstate to drive north on Arkansas 23.  We were finally in the Ozarks and this road could give some West Virginia highways a run for their money.  Kevin was driving and got to find out just how well the Saab handled in such situations.  There were a few times he passed trucks crossing double yellow lines to do so, but had he not passed the slow-moving behemoths, we might still be on 23. 

Once in Eureka Springs, we found Magnetic Road and Nancy led us right to the artists' entrance to the Ozark Passion Play.  This was not quite what we were looking for, but continuing on up the road, we found our lodging for the night, checked in, unpacked the car, and moved to the pool area where we visited with our hosts.  The day involved over 500 miles crossing two states, and had taken well over the nine hours that Mapquest suggests. 

 

An Ozark Mountain Farm

Near Huntsville, Arkansas

The Second Sunday Drive, Day 33

Parked in front of our cabin

Bluff Creek Falls, Steele Alabama

Everybody movin’ if they ain’t already there
Everybody got to move somewhere
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interestin' right about now

                 --Words and Music by Bob Dylan

To hear the Dixie Chicks' version of Bob Dylan's song, Mississippi, click here.

We rose early Monday morning, Labor Day, having spent the night listening to Isaac's rain beating down on the metal roof of our cabin.  I felt sorry for the guys who were tenting.  While Kevin packed up the car, I wandered through the campground and got some pics to remember the place by.  We never made it into the pool, nor did we visit the evening campfire, but we had a good time anyway, and it was now time to head on down the road.

Interstate 59 took us into and through Birmingham, and while I had wanted to photograph Vulcan in all his unclad glory, I wasn't just sure where to get off the highway, so we passed on through the city.  For those of you who don't know Birmingham, let me assure you that the world's largest cast iron statue is not showing full frontal nudity.  He is wearing a blacksmith's apron, but he moons the residential area of the city that lies behind him.  I'd seen the statue, front and rear, the last (and only previous) time I'd been in Birmingham, back in 1999.  At that time, I was attending the winter conference of New Image International, held over the three-day Martin Luther King holiday.  What a time to be in the Deep South.  As it turns out, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in protest of the holiday, and where did they hold it?  Exactly midway between our downtown hotel and the Birmingham-Jefferson County Convention Complex where we were meeting.  What fun.  What had been a pleasant four block walk on Saturday turned into a harrowing mile-long drive to get around the police barricades.  It reminded me of my college days.

 

 

The Pool at Bluff Creek Falls

(Note how wet the deck is--thank you Isaac)

 

This three-day holiday weekend, Kevin and I drove unmolested through the city, never getting off the interstate, until we decided it was time (past time, actually) for breakfast.  Waffle House is ubiquitous throughout the South, and that's where we ended up, in one of Birmingham's southwestern suburbs.  I mentioned to the waitress that Kevin had never eaten at a Waffle House, and she promptly brought out a WH hat for him to wear.  I think he's still got it somewhere.

After breakfast, we continued on I-59 to Tuscaloosa, where we drove through the city on Lurleen B Wallace Boulevard, crossing the city till we turned onto U.S. 82 heading west.  Tuscaloosa is the home of the University of Alabama--the Crimson Tide--and has many streets named for famous people, not all of them football heroes.  For example, there is also a Helen Keller Boulevard, a Jack Warner Parkway, and a Paul W. Bryant Drive.

 

 

Heading west across Alabama

 

Heading west from Tuscaloosa, we passed miles of farmland, and miles of Kudzu covered landscape.  We crossed into Mississippi heading for Starkville, home of Mississippi State University and MFJ Enterprises, "the world leaders in amateur radio accessories," according to the souvenir mug I have before me.  As Kevin is a ham (amateur) radio operator, I leave it to you to figure out just why we had driven so many miles out of our way home.  As it was Labor Day, we couldn't visit MFJ, so after we found their offices, we checked into the Days Inn on Veterans' Memorial Drive.  What is it with these southern cities?  Can't they just use letters and numbers to name their streets?  As we were leaving the front desk, we noticed the sign advising us that the pool was closed for repairs.  The temperature was approaching 100 degrees and the humidity was right up there with the temp.  A closed pool was not a good sign.

 

 

Welcome to Mississippi

 

We didn't do much in the way of sightseeing while in Starkville, opting instead to stay in our air-conditioned room.  We did, however, head to Stromboli's for dinner, having found the place on my iPhone's Yelp app.  The place was packed, to the extent that we had to wait for a table.  I couldn't help but notice that we were old enough to be the grandfathers of most of the clientele.  Well, this is a college town and we were in a pizza place.  But the owner(?) who greeted us was very friendly, and took our order before we ever got a table so that the wait was minimized when we were finally seated.  And the pizza?  I can say right now that it is bar none the best pizza I have ever had.  Can't say I recommend travel to or through Mississippi, especially not in the summer, but should you find yourself in Starkville, by all means visit Stromboli's.

Later that evening, Kevin and I walked about a block from our motel to enjoy an evening ice cream, then it was bedtime.  We had driven less than 200 miles from Steele, Alabama to Starkville, making this one of the shorter days of the drive.

 

Hail State

Mississippi State University