Wednesday. After a good night's sleep, we both woke up early, and I cajoled Joe into getting on the move. We were, amazingly, on the road by 7:15 (hoping to see some early morning wildlife). And we did -- we saw 2 turkeys in the first 5 minutes, and just a few minutes later, 4 deer crossed the road.
We saw turkeys off and on until we got to Mississippi, and then no more showed up. But we also saw a red fox, which was really cool. It stopped and looked at us for a while, so we got a good look at it. We crossed the Tennessee/Alabama state line at 9:00. We pulled into one historic site (I forget which one) and there were 2 trucks behind us. The first one had a wrecked car loaded on it, but the second one was hauling a covered wagon! I was sorry I didn't get a picture of that. We hoped to cross paths with that one again but never did.
Joe's hip was bothering him today so I took over the wheel for a while. I probably drove for 1 1/2 hours. Did I mention that the Trace is very narrow! I had a little trouble keeping it between the lines, but I didn't run over anyone. I even missed a baby turtle that was very slowly crossing my lane. I don't know what it was thinking.
We crossed the pretty Tennessee River, and right beside that was a side road for the Colbert Ferry. We drove back to it and parked. There was a boat ramp there, and a pretty black and white bird posed for me.
There are some pretty famous bridges on the Trace. This one, over the Tennessee River, is the John Coffee Memorial Bridge, the parkway's longest bridge.
We crossed into Mississippi around noon and stopped at another historic site -- Bear Creek Mound.
We see lots of wildflowers blooming, including large patches of red ones, that we found out was red clover. There was a large patch here when we stopped at the Pharr Mounds -- 8 burial mounds built 1,800 to 2,000 years ago. You can see two small mounds in this photo.
Another interesting sight was the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. This waterway opens a navigable route between the Gulf of Mexico and the Tennessee River. After seeing so many natural rivers, this was quite a change.
Our next stop was the Natchez Trace Visitor Center. It would have been nice to have had one of these when we first got on the Trace because there was some information that would have been useful. However, this one was without power -- and had been since the bad thunderstorms on Monday.
From there, we drove down to the highway that took us into Tupelo -- yes, I finally got to see the birthplace of Elvis. As we entered the town, we could see repairs underway from the tornado damage on Monday -- power lines were down and irrigation systems had been overturned. We did not see any of the damage to houses though.
We spent a little time at Elvis' house. In addition to the house that has been restored (Elvis' father actually built the little 2-room house himself), there is a church, a memorial chapel that plays his gospel music, and of course a gift shop. Also on display is a car like the one Elvis' dad dorve when he moved them from Tupelo to Memphis. It's either a 1937 or 1939 Plymouth.
I'm waiting for Elvis to come swing with me.
It only had a bedroom and a kitchen.
We didn't go into the church -- I think it has a video running of the gospel music Elvis grew up listening to (and maybe him singing) and you have to wait until it finishes. But we did go into the memorial chapel.
And the gift shop. I've added another cup to my collection. Joe was very patient and let me spend as much time here as I wanted, but we eventually left and headed into town to find some lunch. On the corners downtown there were guitars on display.
After lunch, we headed back to the Trace to resume our trip. We encountered some more bikers, and the mobile van that goes with them.
And then we had to STOP. There was some road construction, and a flagman. Joe thought we should call someone and complain, since this road was supposed to not have any stops on it.
Our next stop on the Trace was the Cypress Swamp, which was awesome. But the mosquitoes were very friendly too. There was a boardwalk bridge or trail all the way around one part of the swamp, so we got to see it from several different angles. There are cypress and tupelo trees both.
From there, we drove on past the Ross R. Barnett Reservoir on the Pearl River. It was beautiful, and huge.
By now, it was a full day and time to get off the Trace and find someplace to camp. The hostess at the Visitor Center told us about La Fleur State Park in Jackson, so we put that in the GPS and headed into Jackson, Mississippi. We found the park, but not the entrance, so we turned around and stopped while I tried to call (of course no one answered because it was already after 6:00). But a very nice lady stopped and asked if we needed help, and she told us to "follow her" to the campground. Which we did. But when we got there, it was closed due to flooding from the storm the day before. We had pulled into the entryway because it was at a park where lots of kids had baseball games going, and there was no way to turn around. So we had to unhook the car. But when I went to start the car, the battery was dead. (Later we decided I had left the key in the wrong position all day). Anyway, Joe got out the jumper cables and was trying to figure out how to get the RV turned around to the front of my car when a guy stopped and asked if we needed help. First, he called another campground for us (it didn't answer either but he gave us directions). Then he pulled his truck over and hooked up the jumper cables so we could get the car started. All that worked, and we found the way to the campground he had directed us to. (I drove the car over, so by the time we got to the campground the battery was back up and it started from then on.) We found the people in Mississippi to be the nicest people we have ever met. We had two more encounters the next day with very helpful people, so we have nothing but nice things to say about Mississippians!
So we drove 331 miles today, but 22 of them were unproductive -- it was us chasing down the campgrounds. We drove through town, first trying to get to the one that was closed, then the GPS took us through town instead of onto the freeway to get to the second campground. We found out the next morning we were only a couple miles off the Trace. We ended up in Clinton, instead of Jackson, but that didn't matter.
The weather was nice all day -- it started out a little cloudy, then it was sunny, then it clouded us again. The temperature was in the 60s all day, very pleasant.
Anyway, by now, it had gotten to be a VERY LONG DAY. I think it was about 9:00 p.m. when we got to our campsite. We hooked up the electricity to the RV, drove back out to a nearby restaurant to get something to eat, and then gladly called it a day.
