Causeyville, Meridian, Toomsuba, Shuqualak Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Another early start, another really dull drive down Highway 45 South. We left Tupelo about 7:30 to allow plenty of time to stop at Highway 45 Antiques, which is about ten miles north of Meridian. Marian’s had her eye on this place for years. She and Barry travel the route often to see friends in Alabama but oddly, he shows no interest in it at all. I share her interest, of course, so we spent about an hour browsing, and walked away with a huge bell for Marian and a pair of sparkly gold pumps for me. Don’t know that we would stop again for anything other than a good walk around, but it was fun and the people who work at the store are really nice.

CAUSEYVILLE

From there we went to Causeyville, just outside Meridian. To get there, we drove about twelve miles down a winding, two-lane country road that is really lovely. And then it’s not lovely. And then it’s lovely again. No, wait! It’s not. There are some zoning issues in Causeyville. Or rather, a total lack of zoning in Causeyville. Nice home, trailer, nice home, trailer, nice home, trailer, trailer, trailer.…

We have included here, for your visual pleasure, one of the houses that really caught our attention, a stone house that proves once and for all that you really can have too much of a good thing.

Also, please note the beautiful mansion with the lavender front door. No, no... we don’t know why they chose such a garishly wimpy color - and either do their neighbors, according to the lady we talked to. Trust us, the door is incredibly photogenic! The big picture is scary.

The Causeyville General Store

The purpose of our trip to Causeyville was to visit the Causeyville General Store (1895), which, along with the gristmill (1869) next door, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The mill wasn’t open when we were there, so we just saw the store. It still operates as a real store, and it’s very nostalgic – brought back a lot of memories – but it’s a long drive out in the country to get to it, and as far as we could determine, it alone qualifies as downtown Causeyville.

The Gristmill

Advertisement for Coca-Cola on the wall of the General Store. It was beautifully preserved under the side porch. Wish I could have moved the Coke machine to get an isolated picture...just too nice not to share!

MERIDIAN

We went straight into Meridian then, and made our first stop at Hamasa Shrine Temple Theater. It’s a Moorish revival-style theater that has been in operation continuously since 1928. That’s no mean feat. The entire theater is original, which is incredible if you think about it. Even the seats! The plaster on the walls is original as well, but unfortunately, in the 1970s someone colored most of it in hippie-dippie rainbow hues. Not a pretty sight.

The theater has seen vaudeville and movies, and nowadays it sees all sorts of plays and concerts, in addition to various events (wedding receptions and the like in its huge ballroom). Basically, they rent it out for many things because they get no federal or state funds. The theater is privately owned, and it has to be a huge financial drain. The man who owns it (who may be from Meridian originally, I’m not sure about that) lives in Texas now and keeps an apartment in the theater that he uses when he’s in town. Now, that has to be one spooky place to stay! All alone in an old, empty 9,000 square foot building in a town that’s almost deserted at night. Shiiiivvverrrrr.

We found the theater closed, although the internet site we had visited said it would be open. But, there was a man out front changing the marquee and he let us in and the lady who runs the place took us on a personal tour. She didn’t miss a thing! We even went onstage where – had either of us had any talent at all – we would have performed a little something.

Marian -- It is very obvious that Susan has been able to put my on-stage performance away in her memory bank......no, I didn't belt out "Tomorrow" like I would have like to have done, but, I did sing a few lines... The acoustics are phenomenal, outstanding, remarkable. I would love to hear a performance in this building!

The place is a treasure! It really is. There is nothing more wonderful than a building with soul, and this place has been around long enough to truly have soul. There are a couple of things about the place we found particularly interesting. One of those things sits in the lobby. It’s a big wooden box – about the size of an ancient television set – with a musical roll in it like old player pianos have. When the woman turned the box on, it lit up, the music roll started turning, and the accordion inside started to play all by itself. It went in and out like it was being played by a ghost. It’s the sort of thing that fascinated people in the 1930s, bored people in the 1970s, and is fascinating again in 2010.

The Temple also has one of only two theater organs in public buildings in the state, and it’s a whopper! We got to see its innards, and believe us, you’re not likely to see a bigger one. And, something that is totally unimportant, but fascinating to us nonetheless, is that Zoltar the Fortune Teller from the movie “Big” is there. The theater’s owner is a movie buff, and he bought him and put him in the old ticket booth once used at the “colored entrance.” (The box has been moved inside the building now, it doesn’t open to the outside.) Like all places in Mississippi back when the theater opened, there was a colored entrance with a set of stairs that went up to “their” balcony area which, by the way, has the same wooden fold-up seats as downstairs – sans padding.Ouch.

We had a wonderful time at the Temple and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, but by the end of the tour we were hungry in a major sort of way. We were directed to Jean’s, a “home-cooking” type place near the train station. We stuffed ourselves with country vegetables and cornbread until we just couldn't eat any more. Then we ordered pie! Yum.

Our next stop was the most important of the trip – at least to Marian. We went to the Highland Park Denzel Carousel. Marian does love a carousel. It’s located indoors – surely one of the most brilliant moves ever, and not just because the carousel is so valuable that it couldn’t really be left outside either. (Although it is.) July is just no time to be outside in Mississippi.

Gustav Denzel was, for those of you who don’t know, one of the finest carousel builders of his time (turn of the 20^th century), and I must say, he outdid himself here. It’s gorgeous! Just gorgeous! Not only are the animals magnificent – and there are lions, tigers, mountain goats, and giraffes in addition to the horses and sleigh seats – but the actual carousel itself with its painted scenes decorating the carousel top are magnificent too. The closer you look, the more exquisite it is. It’s a jewel. And…it goes really really fast. For a carousel, that is. I don’t ever remember going so fast on a merry-go-round.

A ride on the carousel costs 50 cents, yet apparently they still have a hard time selling those seats (or saddles, if you will). Marian and I rode it by ourselves. And so did the four people who started riding when we were leaving. We picked up a couple tee shirts on our way out – pink, of course.

Marian -- I have been wanting to see this carousel forever and I would have stayed there for hours looking at it. Meridian bought this treasure in 1909 for $2,000 and had it completely restored between 1984 through 1995 -- the artist who restored it had to cut through 6 to 10 paint layers to find the original colors. Wow... the highlight of my trip, for real...

When we left the carousel, we went to see the old opera house, although it’s not called that. It is now the Mississippi State University Riley Center for Education and Performing Arts, and all sorts of concerts and events are held there. Built in 1889, it is a Victorian Grand Opera House, and we hear it’s magnificent (although the lady at the Temple says they have actually gutted and refurbished the place and, therefore, it’s not truly original). We don’t know if she’s right or not, because we were wandering around the public areas, trying to find the main auditorium to take a quick look inside when, lo and behold, we bumped right into a security guard. Our personal, self-guided tour ended then. We must say, the pictures of the auditorium/stage are grand.

We were a little disappointed about not getting to see the old Opera House, but we consoled ourselves with a visit to Rose Hill Cemetery. No, we have no relatives buried there. Rose Hill Cemetery is home to people far more interesting than anyone Marian or I are related to. It’s the final resting place of “Emil and Kelly Mitchell, king and queen of all the gypsies in the United States!” Now, who knew? Certainly neither of us could tell you how Meridian, Mississippi came to be home to gypsy royalty, or why gypsy royalty would have such…uh…pedestrian…names. I mean, Emil’s okay, but shouldn’t the rest of the names be more Romanian, or European, or something a little more exotic than Bob, Joe, and Mitchell?

The grave of Kelly Mitchell -- Queen of the Gypsies

Emil Mitchell -- King of the Gypsies

A good number of Emil and Kelly’s family members share their small cemetery home with them – probably just as they did in life: Bob Sharkie, Joe Sharkie Mitchell, Diana Sharkie Mitchell, and Flora Mitchell are there too, and they’ve been able to make the most of Emil and Kelly’s status because some of the many gifts Emil and Kelly receive overflow to them. We were told that we HAD to take a gift to the king and queen, although we don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t left anything. And, while we don’t actually believe in gypsy magic, one just can’t be too careful these days, so we thought…why not? Actually, the many gifts that adorn their graves were how we were able to locate them – we saw a ton of Mardi Gras beads draped over some headstones and figured it had to be them!

Some people – people as ambivalent about (or as unprepared for) honoring gypsy royalty as Marian and I were – leave coins rather than gifts, so King Emil and Queen Kelly’s graves are all but covered in money (very low denominations of money). Other people get real creative – we saw a few empty beer bottles and a cell phone, and Marian and I would have been equally creative had we had even a stick of gum to leave, but we didn’t, so we paid our respects with a shiny new penny for each of them and went on our way. By the way, the headstones had photos on them, and they were very attractive people!

Diana Sharkey Mitchell

With that, we had seen all we came to see in Meridian. I must say though, we were really impressed with the town and the brightly painted carousel horses that decorate its sidewalks. It has the most bizarre street layout of anyplace I’ve ever been, really confusing, but the town must have one heck of a historical society – they are to be commended for saving so many downtown buildings. We learned that Meridian used to be a major railroad crossroads, and that is the reason for all the old, high-rise hotels downtown. And, miraculously, a large number of them seem to have been saved. We saw a couple of fine Art Deco buildings too, one of which is being beautifully restored. Meridian’s not a big town, but it has a lot to offer, including train service! I’m terribly jealous about that. Amtrak serves Meridian, and they have a really nice train station.

One of the old Hotels -- it appears that they have repainted some of the signs

One of the old hotels that they are refurbishing--apparently for condos.

But my favorite thing about Meridian – the thing that made me laugh out loud – is a billboard. There’s a huge billboard downtown with a picture of a very attractive woman (40? 50?) smiling and holding a large platter of fried chicken. It’s an ad for a restaurant, her restaurant, I’m assuming, and it says, in huge letters: I sell chicken and chicken accessories!

(Okay, sorry to all of you who have never seen King of the Hill, but I just loved this and had to put it in.)

TOOMSUBA

We spotted this place on the map – it’s just outside Meridian – and decided we would stop on our way home. We really like checking out Mississippi towns with strange names and, quite frankly, there’s no shortage of them. Usually, we find that the names are the most interesting part of the experience, although we found that the greater Toomsuba area is quite large. Toomsuba proper, on the other hand, consists of a post office, a nondescript brick one at that, so there’s really no reason to go, and certainly no reason to go three times, which is what happened to us and we still can’t figure out how. It was partly the fault of a side trip to the Simmons Wright General Store (located in Kewanee), and partly the fault of the atlas we used which added one teeny-tiny grey line of a road. It was frustrating, but worth it to see the store. It is really an old country store, and upstairs, they have shelves of old shoes from the 1920s (a sign was posted that priced some of the shoes for $30 to $60 a pair). They’re all brand new – lots of brown/white, black/white saddle oxfords and other shoes you’d see in old movies – and they’re all still in the boxes! I don’t recommend saving shoes for 90 years though. They get really dusty, and when you try to take the lid off the shoebox, it falls apart in your hands. Cool shoes though!

Picture from the second floor (from the Simmons Wright website)

Built in 1884 (picture from the Simmons-Wright website -- mine wasn't nearly as neat)

Marian -- I was driving when we went through Toomsuba...all three times ... it is very unsettling to explain how it happened. Each trip was going east to west, each trip involved a stint on the nearby Interstate, each trip resulted in the same realization -- something isn't right. I will not speak of it again. As a caution to all who drive using an atlas in Mississippi ---- don't believe everything you see --- oddly, our GPS was more accurate ! And, no...a GPS in the backroads of Mississippi isn't normally overly helpful, it must be tempered with an atlas and a gazetteer. We've heard the phrase "recalculating" so many times, it's now our mantra.

SHUQUALAK

Now here’s a town that spell check will never come to terms with, another town whose name lures people like Marian and me, and, by the way, it’s pronounced “sugar lock.” Who would have guessed? It appears to be a sleepy little place, but it does have a huge lumber business right downtown. And, just to add a little Mississippi geography lesson here, Shuqualak is home to just under 600 people (70% black, 30% white, negligible % other) about half way between Meridian and Columbus.

Marian -- I just can't ignore old buildings -- not that I would ever go into one without backup, I just love the old paint, brick, vines and dirty windows. E.F. Nunn must have had a bustling business across the train tracks from the downtown area of Shuqualak.

Our Drive to the Coast

Monday, June 14, 2010

We left Tupelo at 6:30 in the morning – we were so excited to be going to the coast! I had only been to Biloxi once (in 1962, I believe) and Marian had been once decades ago as well, so we were really looking forward to seeing the forty-mile or so stretch of Mississippi coast. We decided to go in June (something we wouldn’t ordinarily do) because we felt there was an immediate need for tourists and we're tourists, so….We allotted forty-eight hours to see all we could, not enough time to take in everything, of course, but we don’t worry about that. We don’t hurry; if we find something we like, or someplace that really interests us, we stay as long as we want. If we run out of time and don’t get to see/do everything, we go back, but more than two or three days in a row of the sort of sightseeing we do is exhausting and we don’t want to just go through it as zombies, we want to enjoy every minute. Also, it gets really, really expensive to drag out a trip. We had found a super deal online: a room at the IP Casino and Resort for $48 a night, so we felt pretty good about that…and far less guilty about going out for nice dinners. Since we saw so much on this trip, we've divided it into "the drive down" and "the coast," and we’re blogging this by the individual places we visited rather than dividing it into Day 1, 2, 3.

The drive to the coast – which, I seem to recall, took a full 17,000 hours when I was twelve – is now a mere five hours away! It’s good news/bad news though; it is possibly the dullest drive in the world.

We opted for the Highway 45 South route out of town, and found it to be an incredibly easy four-lane drive, but dull, dull, dull. There is really nothing to look at but trees (although they’re lovely) until Macon, which is some 100 miles down the road. It's not a difficult drive, and the area itself isn't particularly unattractive; it's more like nondescript. It is simply boring. There's just nothing there. Nothing.

The thing that finally caught our attention – and this is indicative of how dull the drive really is – were rolls of hay. We don’t know anything about varieties of hay (and, really, we don’t care), but some clever farmer obviously considered this variety valuable enough to cover the hay-rolls in white plastic. They are scattered all over a huge field, making it look like a giant marshmallow crop. It’s on the east side of 45, just north of Scooba, should you happen to be heading that way, and take our word for it, by the time you get that far down 45, you’ll find it as interesting as we did.

SCOOBA

Scooba greets passers-by with a living sign beside the highway that spells out “Scooba” in small evergreens of some sort. There is a sign right next to that announcing the town as the “Birthplace of World Champion Turkey Caller Jack Lewis Dudley.” Dudley, alas, has called his last turkey, having passed away in November of 2008, but it’s nice to think that his hometown holds him in such high regard.

Scooba is also home to East Mississippi Community College, a place we had never been...or even thought about going. What a surprise – it’s beautiful! Lovely buildings, clean, well-kept campus, friendly people. The sign over the front gate declares that it dates to 1927, and, even more important to us, the school has a cafeteria. Sadly, it was closed when we drove through – a real shame for people who love cafeteria dining as much as Marian and I do. Also, in all seriousness, that cafeteria may be the nicest restaurant in town. The other restaurant is in a gas station. Honest.

While it seems impossible in this day and age, I’m afraid it’s true: Scooba is a town without restaurants. We drove through downtown Scooba, a strip of dilapidated buildings, virtually all of which are empty, so we’re quite sure we didn’t overlook any diners, restaurants, or fast food outlets there. We saw two storefronts that might possibly still be in business, but we weren’t positive, and neither was food-related anyway. Conversely, the residential areas we drove through are rather nice, full of well kept homes and more than enough churches to go around. Scooba’s not at all shabby, except for its downtown (which is in astoundingly bad shape, but could be made quite charming). The very idea of a college town with NO FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS WHATSOEVER puts me in awe of EMCC’s ability to draw students. Any students. Even one. What a recruiting staff they must have!

Now, to be fair, Scooba has only slightly more than 600 people, and covers only 2.5 square miles, and I don’t imagine a lot of fast food HQs search out such demographics. Still, it seems like someone has missed a huge opportunity there. Or perhaps they just don’t want such things. I don’t know.

MERIDIAN

In Meridian we left 45 for I-59, another fine, albeit boring, stretch of road. Meridian appears to be a pretty big town. Generally speaking, big towns don’t excite either of us, but we are planning an upcoming trip to Meridian to see their carousel, their Opera House, and quite a few other things. We’ve read that there is a religious order called German Baptists (similar to Mennonites) in that part of the state, and we noticed exits for towns named Vossburg, Paulding, and Heidelburg, so we thought we might check out those places too.

SOSO (and environs)

We left I-59 just outside Laurel for Highway 84 and then turned onto Highway 28; we’re using the term highway for 28 loosely here, but it is a nice road. Destination: Soso, one of the cutest-named towns in the state. The first thing we noticed about Soso, and indeed, the entire greater Soso area, was kudzu. We had never seen so much kudzu, and that’s saying a lot for two people raised in Mississippi. It wasn’t just taking over the trees along the sides of the road either (although most certainly, it was), it was actually creeping toward the road. Even the road shoulders were kudzu-covered, and I imagine they frequently find sprigs snaking right up onto the pavement.

Not surprisingly, there isn’t much to Soso, but we really liked the place. They have a stone community center, as you can see. It’s charming really, although there is more mortar than stone in many places.

But our favorite thing was the small trailer that houses a "seafood restaurant," or more specifically, the sign advertising it. Is that a hoot, or what?

From Soso, we drove through Gitano (invisible) and Taylorsville (cute – needs work, but cute) and on to our real goal, Hot Coffee.

HOT COFFEE

Ah, how long we have wanted to visit Hot Coffee, Mississippi! We plan on seeing all of Mississippi’s Coffees – Coffeeville, Coffee, Coffee County – and any other Coffee we can find because we just love coffee. There isn’t much to Hot Coffee, as you can see from their “downtown,” (the store's closed, by the way) but we hadn’t expected a metropolis.

In fact, we had only known about one place to go, and that was McDonald’s Store. As you can see from the sign, it’s a family-friendly kind of a place. Although the term "mini mall" is stretching things a (good) bit, the store stocks just about everything, food to clothes, including school uniforms. We each picked up a (hot pink!) tee shirt there to prove we had actually been to Hot Coffee. Also, we wanted to contribute a little something to the local economy.

What's wrong with this picture?
As we were leaving McDonald's Store we noticed this warning sign on one of the entry doors. It immediately put us in mind of the famous line, "What we have here, is a failure to communicate." Surely they don't mean this.

Another sign we noted alongside the road right by the store says “Summer Feeding Program Two Meals a day” followed by info. We assumed it’s for the kids who get free lunches during the school year. What a scary, sad sign.

There’s not much you can say about Hot Coffee, but there is something we found interesting about the general area. Apparently, if you own land, you're expected to name any street (okay, road) that happens to cross that land after yourself. It makes for an amusing assortment of roads that tee into Highway 29:

Vester Pickering Road

Addie Booker Drive

Melvin Mauldin Road

Mitchell Riggins Road

Tabis Crosby Lane

and our very favorites,

Dick Owens Road

followed by

Oscar Owens Road

followed by

Robert Owens Road

Guess Grandpa Owens was quite the landowner.

MOUNT OLIVE

Mount Olive, Mississippi, was the hometown of the late, great Steve McNair, Tennessee Titans quarterback and much beloved Nashvillian. You may

recall that he was killed by a “ladyfriend” last July, and it was a truly heartbreaking loss for Nashville. I don’t know if his lovely wife

and their sons have moved back to Mississippi or not, but I can see why they might want to go back to Mount Olive. It’s such a nice town!

The horse tied up in the carport was especially charming. Not because it was tied up in a carport, but because it was obviously used as transportation. The street where we saw this was a boulevard with many, many large, absolutely beautiful old houses. We were quite taken with Mount Olive. It has a lot of its original buildings; some need to be refurbished, but others have been well-loved.

There’s an old drugstore, Powell Drugs, that occupies one corner of their downtown and it’s just beautiful; it has its original mosaic floor and a marble soda fountain counter that couldn’t be duplicated today. And again,

such nice people.

COLLINS

Collins is lovely, a small, attractive town surrounded by a conflux of four-lane highways the likes of which can only mean that Collins is home to some world-class politicians – or their biggest donors. It’s a dream come true for anyone who admires boondoggles of any sort. Gerald McRaney – oh, you know, he was on “Simon and Simon” and some other shows and he’s married to Delta Burke – is from Collins, but we can’t find anyone else from there, certainly no one to explain all the fine roads juxtaposing at what is essentially a map dot. We had a good barbeque lunch there, at The Mercantile, and learned that there is such a thing as pecan oil – virgin pecan oil, at that. We’d never heard of such.

BOND

We got back on Highway 49 South in Collins (one of our many highway options in Collins) and took it down through Hattiesburg to the coast highway. The town (possibly community) of Bond is off – as in just a few yards off – Highway 49 South, just beyond the big northern block of Desoto National Forrest, yet it was surprisingly difficult to find. Still, we managed. We weren’t looking for a downtown or anything; our destination was Bond Cemetery. You see, Dizzy Dean is buried there.

Wiggins, Mississippi, being close to and somewhat bigger than Bond, tries to take credit for hosting his remains by kind of co-opting

the cemetery, but they're only fooling themselves. He's not in Wiggins. He’s in Bond. Dizzy was actually from Arkansas originally, but he retired to the area and so…here he is!

The Coast

BILOXI

We came into Biloxi on Highway 110 and Boom! there was our hotel, the IP. How handy is that? We dropped off our stuff and headed out to see Biloxi, starting with the lighthouse and the beach, both of which were lovely. The lighthouse wasn’t open – it’s too hot in the afternoons this time of year, but we walked down to the water and checked to be certain there wasn’t any tar around. There wasn’t. Not a bit. Then we went to the Welcome Center (which is in a really charming old house) where we picked up several brochures and bought a Biloxi tee shirt. We don’t actually wear a lot of tee shirts, but it’s a nice way to contribute to the local economy and we feel an almost moral obligation to do that in most of the places we visit in Mississippi.

The medians on Highway 90 – the highway that runs right along the beachfront for pretty much the entire coast and is an absolutely beautiful drive – used to be full of oak trees. Pre-Katrina, that is. Someone (many someones, I suppose) took the ones that Katrina killed and chain-sawed (and detailed) them into these beautiful sculptures. Some are really elaborate, others simple, but they’re all lovely and uplifting.

Beauvoir (pronounced “buhv WAH” locally), post-war home of Jefferson Davis, is in Biloxi, of course, and it’s well on its way to being totally restored. Apparently, there were seven outbuildings on the property prior to Katrina in 2005, and only two have been replaced, but the house itself is finished and lovely. It’s really a beauty of a place, we had a great tour guide, and the restoration job is first rate. Katrina tore off the porch and the roof and, actually, she tore up and carried off the huge stone entry gateway (it lies in pieces in the cemetery behind the house). But, only a foot of water got into the house, and that’s a blessing. The piano and one bed were lost, but everything else could be redone, and you can’t tell now.

This is one of the pictures that was posted at Beauvior. It shows how the house looked immediately after Katrina finished with it. Yes, that is a cloud in the upper right roof area.  The old picture doesn't show the remains of the President Casino which was moved from its Gulf location about a block east to the lot next door.

The cemetery behind Beauvoir has many graves of Confederate soldiers and their wives (from the days after Davis, when it was a rest home for Confederate soldiers), but Jefferson Davis is not there, so don’t wander around in the heat trying to hunt him down like we did. He’s in Richmond, Virginia, at the Confederate Cemetery.

There is another place of historic proportions in Biloxi, and that is the restaurant, Mary Mahoney’s. Since we were only spending $48 a night for a room, we figured we could splurge on a nice dinner, and Mary’s is a splurge. We had gumbo – absolutely the best gumbo either of us had ever tasted, simply beyond belief – and then Marian went with fried oysters and I had an escargot entrée made with shrimp rather than snails, which is the way I prefer escargot. We literally ate ourselves sick.

The posts pictured above are what remains of the President Casino. I'm sure that it had some beautiful views, and I understand that the “on the water” bit was to circumvent Mississippi’s gambling regulations, etc., but really – What were they thinking?

Biloxi’s IP Resort turned out to be a really good hotel choice – and not just because of the price. The employees were nice and our room was lovely, with comfy beds, good linens, a very nice bathroom, and completely toenail-free carpets throughout. And, like everything else on the coast, it is relatively new, or at least newly refurbished. You’ll find very, very few dry goods of any sort on the coast that pre-date 2005. Also, and this was a surprise, they gave each of us a $10 casino tab, making our room, effectively, $38 a night. Now, we realize that $10 doesn’t exactly make us “whale” material, but that’s just what Marian and I had planned to spend gambling, so isn’t that a nice coincidence? Marian managed to parlay hers into $17+, and I cashed out with a dollar to spare before I lost everything, but we spent a pleasant half hour or so.

We took a look around the Beau Rivage, which is the biggest, glitziest casino and a little better located than IP, being right on the coast highway and therefore, the water, and it was very nice. I must say, some real name entertainers come to the coast. They don’t stay long – most of the shows are one-nighters – but they do come.

OCEAN SPRINGS

Everyone whose tastes we admire told us how wonderful Ocean Springs is, so we were real excited about seeing it. While it was nice – a cute little downtown – we weren’t overly impressed. To be fair, one reason may have been the heat. It was 600 degrees that day. Just miserable. Maybe if we had been able to stroll the streets we would have felt differently, but it just wasn’t strolling weather. We did find a row of cute stores with good air conditioners and we whiled away an hour or so.

There are so many artists on the coast! We saw beautiful things, and found some great “beach themed” things for the beach houses we don’t own, and many lovely items useful for the sort of entertaining we don’t do – so we had to put most of that stuff back. We did pick up quite a few pretty things, though. Sadly, I opted not to get the glass wine cooler I had my eye on, and I’m still regretting it. (I do drink wine. I could have actually used that. I don’t know what I was thinking. It must have been the heat.)

We tried to visit the Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge just outside Ocean Springs, but we were told that we wouldn’t be able to actually see any cranes and it was waaaay too hot to be out and about with no payback. Also, in her effort to encourage us to see the place, the volunteer ranger told us we should be sure to take this little hike along the water and look for their resident alligator. “It’s huge!” she exclaimed. “Almost everyone sees him,” she went on, "it's like he knows people are there, so he pops up out of the water!" Okay….

PASCAGOULA
I think most Mississippians know that there are shipyards in Pascagoula, but I also think that, like us, they would be astounded to see how huge said shipyards are. Massive! Gives you faith to see that something – anything – is made in the U.S. (and in Mississippi). We didn’t really tour around Pascagoula; we didn’t see anywhere to tour, although there might be some really pretty parts somewhere. To us it just seemed like Gautier and Pascagoula were industrial areas, but again, we were just glimpsing this trip.

(Marian -- I was driving on this trip-- as per normal -- and chose a wrong lane -- also, as per normal -- and put us on a 3 lane access road to the massive shipyard at the exact time when 1500+ workers were getting off work. The traffic was so heavy leaving the shipyard area that they have traffic lights controlling their departure and, quite frankly, if it were not for those traffic lights, our U turn wouldn't have been so quick...)

GULFPORT

It was obvious from the get-go that Gulfport got hit a lot harder than Biloxi in Katrina. As we drove down 90, the beach was gorgeous and oh so clean, and the inland side of the road was bare. Well, it wasn’t completely bare, of course, if you looked closely you could see the foundations of former homes, along with an occasional set of steps and a few really gnarly trees, but it appears that the beach, the highway, and the houses that lined 90 through Gulfport all blew away. Some houses have been rebuilt, but not many. It’s an absolutely gorgeous strip of real estate, and the beach, which is mostly new sand, is simply stunning. Nobody was on the beach. Nobody. It was clean – no oil – but there were no tourists.

Speaking of Gulfport’s beautiful beach, the Audubon Society has claimed part of the beach for a Least Tern Nesting Area. The least tern is the smallest of the terns and gulls, at about nine inches. Their nesting area is roped off, which seemed unnecessary since there are virtually no people on the beach, but it turns out that the roping off, as well as the sign that says, “Nest in peace,” might be to protect people rather than warn them. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say: “The least tern breeds in colonies of up to 200 birds. Nests are scraped in sand, shell or gravel, and may be sparingly lined with small shells or other debris. Eggs are commonly laid in clutches of 2 from late May through June, and are incubated by both sexes for 21 days. The young fledge in 19-20 days. The least tern is very defensive in the colony, and adults scream and dive at intruders.”

My research also indicated that the birds are endangered in the interior U.S., but not on the coast. Hmmm? I don’t know much about such things, but it would seem to me that most “ocean birds” would be endangered in the interiors of the country. Any country. Granted, there are sea gulls all over Utah and Idaho (left from the days when the Great Salt Lake was an ocean, maybe?) but this same train of thought would mean that beavers would be an endangered species in the Mojave, or lobsters in Colorado, and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that. Anyway, we’re glad the Audubon Society is doing what it’s doing, because we really really love birds.

Downtown Gulfport is pretty impressive. We hadn’t expected a lot of nice old buildings, but there they were. While it must have been harmed by Katrina, it was not destroyed like the coastal area, although it’s only a few blocks inland. Neither Marian nor I knew much about the coast, but it appeared to us that Gulfport was more upscale than Biloxi.

There’s an old restaurant in Gulfport called White Cap Seafood Restaurant. It’s been around since 1928 – not in its present building/location, of course. We picked it blind, using the tried and true “the parking lot looks full to me” method, but we had a really good meal (fish and shrimp) and a fabulous mango margarita. Mmmmm.

LONG BEACH

Long Beach is unique, we decided, among the other coastal areas, in that it appears to sit below sea level, yet it’s actually fourteen feet above. Still, we saw some houses whose doors were no more than two or three inches off the ground! (People seem to be building new houses on stilts fifteen feet or more high.) Considering that the storm surge from Katrina was twenty-three feet, it seemed kind of perilous to us to have a house sitting smack dab on the ground, but these houses were old and had obviously survived Katrina. Don’t know how. We didn’t spend any time in Long Beach, so we don’t have a lot to say about it, but we were told it was pretty much wiped out by Katrina. Again, the beach is gorgeous.

We did visit the Antique Junction there and whiled away a good hour looking at art work, antiques, jewelry, etc. Nice place, wonderful owners.

PASS CHRISTIAN

There is a Wal-Mart on the coast highway (okay, it’s behind the highway a bit, but since nothing is right up on the highway at this time, it is “on the highway”). Now, perhaps I have missed something, but isn’t an ocean view kind of wasted on Wal-Mart? Seriously. We saw this time and time again on the coast. Ocean view lots – right on the water – tend to be prime real estate, yet we even saw a cemetery on Highway 90 in Biloxi! Not only did it seem a waste of a great view, but a really poor place to put anything underground. Surely they lose a few residents with every hurricane.

Pass Christian has a beautiful marina, and a fun restaurant named Shaggy’s right there on the water, but the city was obviously destroyed in Katrina. As an interesting aside, Pass Christian actually does sit below sea level.

BAY ST. LOUIS

Alllllrrriiight!!! That’s for us. We found our place and it’s Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Charming. Totally charming. Lots of old houses and buildings. Along the waterfront, there are many still-vacant lots, but many things made it through; not unscathed maybe, but they made it. We actually saw the remains of one ruined building that appeared to have been a bank – a bank with a water view. Anyway, we think it was a bank because amidst the rubble (the building itself didn’t make it) stood a giant vault. It was just standing there, all by itself.

Bay St. Louis was also the place where we saw our first oil booms. There’s a huge bridge that carries you (across St. Louis Bay) from Pass Christian to Bay St. Louis and that’s where the booms were. There was no oil though.

Anyway, we visited a few antique stores – we love antique stores! – and then we had to turn toward home via highway 603. The route took us through Kiln, a nice rural area with lovely homes, and by Purvis, the RV capital of the world, apparently.

ELLISVILLE

If Ellisville sounds familiar, it is the home of a state school that provides services to citizens with mental retardation or development disabilities for many southern counties of Mississippi. It's a couple hours north of the coast, and is also home to some of the grandest murals in the state – all, apparently, done by one woman. They’re all over! The town looks like a nice place, though it still has a ways to go, but the work they have put into the place is extraordinary! It’s really one of the nicer towns we have come across. Take a look at some of their building sides….

As an aside: Neither Marian nor I were prepared to see the devastation from Katrina. Everything has been cleaned up, but we were shocked to see how much has not been rebuilt. It appears that the economy has all but killed a good bit of their recovery, and now... the oil spill. We saw no signs of the spill. None. Granted, the Mississippi coast will never have the crystal blue water and the surf of its Alabama and Florida neighbors, but it's still lovely, and these people are hurting. If you live close enough - and it's an easy but boring 5 hours from Tupelo - and you're looking for something to do some weekend, drive down and spend a little time and money with them. Spend the night, have a nice dinner...it won't take much money, but they really need all the help they can get. Marian and I plan to go back in a couple months and do some of the things we didn't have time for this trip - boat rides, a visit to the fort, etc.

Belmont, Fulton, Peppertown, Mooreville May 25, 2010

Okay, maybe we didn't give the city of Belmont a fair shake on our last visit. And, I was really thinking that we needed to revisit T & M wholesalers just for a quick outing, so... I convinced Susan that a very mini trip was necessary. Besides, the greenery along the Natchez Trace is more lush and beautiful than I have ever seen-- it almost reaches out and grabs you as you pass by (and, I'm not talking about the kudzu, although I've never seen it healthier). We are so lucky to have this National Park in our area!

Oh, Belmont, poor Belmont...we tried...we really did. Remember the Belmont Hotel that we wrote about earlier? It is an old hotel (not many of these are still standing) built in the downtown area of Belmont. Well, we drove by the old Belmont Hotel and found it still for sale but, this time, it appears that the hotel is deserted. Guess the Pop Tart breakfast didn't go over too well with the clientele. It is a shame that someone can't make a go of a bed and breakfast in this downtown area.

T & M Tool Mart is located just south of Belmont on 25. It was as well-stocked as before, but, the rows and rows of Chinese-made catalog materials didn't get our attention or mean as much to us on this trip. (In fact, the Chinese-made stuff that we see in our travel reminds me of two very hurtful things: #1 Mississippi has lost jobs and #2 China now has more millionaires than ever.) We did see some of the cutest Ole Miss serving plates and tailgating supplies on row 1, but by row 8 the scenery had changed to tools....not really exciting to us. On one end of the building, right behind a row of all types of ribbon was a room filled with paper supplies. After handling and opening hundreds of journals, diaries and photo albums, we made our selections -- we even had to go get a shopping basket when four hands would no longer hold our finds -- checked out, and headed for the Sparks Restaurant for their blue plate special lunch.

The lunch at Sparks was as homemade and as tasty as their breakfast. For $8, you get a selection of meat and two vegetables, cornbread or rolls and a dessert. All home made. All seasoned and cooked like your grandmother did. The locals seem to like the fare, too.

Next stop -- Fulton.

In my lifetime, the two lane Highway 78 trip from Tupelo through many small communities to Fulton has changed to a four lane interstate jaunt through rolling hills and pastures. Exactly what tourists and travelers want -- beautiful scenery and fast speed limits. In my mind (and certainly those passing through) the city of Fulton seems to have disappeared. Not true...not true...so not true.

While the downtown area of Fulton seems cleaner than when I last saw it, that's not what sticks in my mind about the area. Itawamba Community College looks better than I've ever seen it. It is clean, polished and so welcoming -- I can completely understand why enrollment is up. The Tenn-Tom Waterway -- a system that was completed over 25 years ago to allow more navigable waterways in mid-America -- has brought more fishing, boating and water sports to the area. The city of Fulton is completing a beautiful 3-mile lighted walkway along the waterway from the bridge to the near-by Jamie Whitten Campground and boat ramp. The walkway is scheduled to be completed before the end of summer 2010 and includes a footbridge (picture shows the footbridge) that spans Cummings Creek and will keep walkers (and bicyclers) away from the traffic.

On the road again, we decided to find Peppertown. Didn't. It was there somewhere, I suppose, but...the only thing that we saw that was memorable was a single-wide manufactured home. I can honestly say that there wasn't even one trash can anywhere inside that trailer. Not one. None. Peppertown used to be the last community before the two lane bridge across the Tombigbee River (before all of the dredging and widening turned it into the Tenn-Tom Waterway).

How about Dorsey? Well, we stumbled (figuratively speaking) into a HUGE manufacturing plant down a road that warned "No Outlet". The Toyota Boshoku America building is waiting for the economic rebound and for the opening of the mega plant outside of Tupelo. We waved at the security cameras and left.

Mooreville? WOW. Along the current Highway 178 (Old Highway 78) going toward Tupelo is the city of Mooreville. We didn't go through any "downtown" area, but, the surrounding area purports some beautiful homes and gardens. Very surprising. I've got to go back and look around more when I have time.

Algoma - Houlka - Van Vleet - Houston - Vardaman - Calhoun City - Bruce - Paris - Water Valley May 24, 2010

Broken bones, family holidays, books that need editing – all these things conspired to shut down Tiny Travels for six long months. But we’re back now, packed and ready to go. We were so excited at the chance to get on the road again that we left Tupelo extra early, intent on cramming in all the places that are too small to warrant a trip in their own right. The intended highlight of the trip was my father's hometown of Houlka, one of the two places my parents actually took me when I was growing up (Aberdeen was the other). When I was a child, we often broke up the trip to my grandparents’ farm by stopping to enjoy a picnic lunch at the roadside park that marked the half-way point of our journey. Imagine my surprise when I grew up and learned that Houlka is only thirty miles from Tupelo! Seriously. We stopped for lunch on a thirty mile trip. Of course, when your parents drive twenty-five or thirty miles an hour, the trip is a bit longer, but still….thirty miles!

Marian and I made our first stop in Pontotoc, at The Hardware Store, Inc. Yes, it’s a real hardware store, but it’s got a pretty impressive gift shop with cute stuff and we enjoyed looking around. We contributed a little something to the local economy before heading on toward Houlka, and just outside Pontotoc I spotted the roadside park we used to stop at in the 50s. It’s closed now, but it’s still there – I couldn’t believe it.

ALGOMA

Shortly after we passed the park, we turned off the highway to make a side trip to Algoma. Wise move. It’s just a little settlement out in the middle of nowhere, but Algoma is a surprisingly upscale community. For the most part, the houses are large, modern and lovely, the yards huge and well kept. Only about fifteen percent of the population earns below the poverty line, so compared with some of the places we've seen, Algoma’s a virtual Beverly Hills or Central Park South. We didn’t see much in the way of businesses in town, except for their locally-famous seafood restaurant (Seafood Junction). The only other business we saw was a quail farm and it was beautiful.

Algoma has the cutest city hall ever, as you can plainly see. You can also see that the town was incorporated in 1904 and again for good measure in 1988. The “God Abides” is more than just a thought, it is what Algoma means in…Hebrew, maybe? And, judging by the number of churches in town, it may be true. God may actually abide in Algoma. Behind the town hall is a walking track, a really nice addition to their little community, and even more impressive considering that there are only about 500 people who call Algoma home. The town may not have a large population, but it’s an obvious case of quality over quantity. These are people who take pride in their houses, yards, and churches and keep them tidy. Sadly, that’s less common than one might think in backroads Mississippi.

HOULKA

A map of Mississippi shows both Houlka and New Houlka, and I was anxious to see New Houlka. A few years ago, I drove to the Houlka I remembered from my childhood and was horrified to see that the downtown had been virtually abandoned; I assumed everything had been moved to New Houlka. Sadly, it turns out that that nearly deserted town is New Houlka! We happened upon Houlka’s mayor, who told us that the town had been located down the road originally, but when the railroad came through, they moved to accommodate it. So, it seems that New Houlka is the only Houlka, and old Houlka is really nothing more than a highway intersection. One has to wonder why it’s still on the map.

Marian -- In my opinion, since New Houlka is now old and Old Houlka doesn't exist, shouldn't it just be Houlka?

Houlka was never a big town, but it was an active, viable farming community when I was little, and it’s sad to see it in such decline. It’s especially sad for me because I’m related to half the town. We don’t know each other, but we’re family. Houlka does have one highpoint though: the old Houlka School building. It’s been refurbished and it’s a treasure.

Marian -- I don't know why I didn't take a picture of this beautiful old building. It is a traditional two-story, multi-windowed schoolhouse that has been rebricked and lovingly refurbished. It is the type of building that makes you stop and take notice. It is south of Highway 32, about a city block from the highway. The activity inside the building denotes some sort of civic organization or something, but they encourage visitors to look around and see what work they have done. The heart pine floors, the bead-board pine walls, the seemingly original stairs.....the building is decorated with pictures of the senior classes from the good ole days and of Jim Hood -- Mississippi's current Attorney General -- who was born in New Houlka. (How he did manage that? There's no hospital in Houlka.)

From Houlka we moved on to Houston via Van Vleet, which – like so many of Mississippi’s communities – is invisible. We tried; we turned off the highway and followed the sign, but there was no town as far as we could see. However, we're glad we went because we got to see this little round house! Actually, it wasn't that little, but there is no denying it's a site worth photographing.

Marian -- This house makes me smile...the little eyes, little round mouth, and perched wings....ready to take flight... If not for the chest freezer just outside the door on the right, I would swear we were looking at an UFO. Reckon what it looks like at night? Hmmm? Wonder if they could paint it orange in the fall?

HOUSTON

I was a little disappointed to see that there was no “Welcome to Houston, birthplace of Susan Lentz” sign to greet me at Houston’s city limits, but still…the little town has some bright spots. We visited an antique store and had a delicious lunch at My Friends Place, a restaurant/gift shop in an old house. (And yes, it concerns me that Friends is not possessive, but according to their business card, that’s the way it’s spelled. I can’t do anything about it. Heaven knows, I would if I could.) Then we headed to Vardaman for dessert at Sweet Potato Sweets.

VARDAMAN

Vardaman, as you may or may not know, is the “Sweet Potato Capital of the World.” Really, it is, at least according to local folks, although China might argue the point. At any rate, those little orange potatoes are a lifesaver as far as Mississippi economies go. There is a small store in Vardaman called Sweet Potato Sweets and, economically speaking, it’s kind of icing on the (sweet potato) cake, a way for a few more people to make a living off the local crop. Brilliant idea too! Everything they sell is made from sweet potatoes and these people are creative! There are sweet potato pies, breads, cakes, cookies, muffin tops, truffles, butters, and jams. There are also sweet potato/pecan pies, pecan sandies made with sweet potatoes, fudge made with sweet potatoes, sweet potato tortilla chips, even sweet potato coffee. The store sells sweet potatoes, too, but I highly recommend sampling the potatoes they've already tampered with - everything we tried was delicious. Take a look: http://www.sweetpotatosweets.com/.

CALHOUN CITY

We had always wanted to see Calhoun City. Now, we have. There was a nice town square, but it made us sad that there were a goodly number of vacant stores. We noted a lot of nice houses around town though, and it was obvious that Calhoun City had probably been a lovely little town.

The only store we visited was Chandler’s Drugs. Their gift shop had some cute stuff, so we shopped around a bit before heading back to the pharmacy to pay for our finds. There we met the store’s owner (?), who is also the mayor of Calhoun City. (Apparently, it was meet-a-mayor-day in Mississippi.) So, we had a lovely chat with the friendly mayor.

BRUCE

Bruce was the next stop, but we didn’t stop for long. We’d been there before (it’s actually the trip that started our Tiny Travels) and not much has changed. We revisited Jeffrey's, the gift shop/lunch counter, and the antique store we liked so much last time, and were sad to see the store now stocks mostly "catalog stuff."

PARIS

Yes, Paris. Marian has always wanted to see Paris in the springtime, and hey, it's springtime, so we went to Paris. We could tell we were there because of the almost-perfect sign pictured here. Other than that, it was kind of hard to spot the place. Parisians could make a fortune if they built a replica of the Eiffel Tower and sold tee shirts, but they haven't opted to do either of those things, so we set off for Water Valley.

It was fortuitous that we made the little side trip to Paris; otherwise we never would have seen the shrimp boat sitting in the middle of a pasture. It was turned away from us, and appeared to be headed toward the horizon, or would have been if it had been moving. Which it wasn't. It's doubtful that it will ever move again, but it would be interesting to learn what a shrimp boat was doing in North Mississippi. Actually, it bore an uncanny resemblance to The African Queen.

WATER VALLEY

Wow! Water Valley won the prize – or would have, had we had a prize. There’s still work to do downtown, but a lot of refurbishment has already been done and someone smart appears to be in charge. And the houses! I can’t recall running across so many gorgeous old homes in one town, virtually all of which appear to have been restored or are in the process of being restored. The neighborhoods around the downtown area are hilly and tree covered, so these gorgeous old houses are beautifully set to boot. What a jewel of a little Mississippi town.

Our trip home took us through Oxford, so we felt obligated to make a stop at our favorite antique store before heading back to Tupelo. This brings up the subject of Mississippi’s rapidly declining number of antique stores. In every part of the state we have traveled through, we have seen an incredible number of antique stores – almost all of them closed. Seriously, it’s like an antique store blight of some sort has wiped out almost all small-town shops. We were told by one store owner that they just can’t make any money, that young people aren’t interested in buying antiques – they don’t like such things, they want modern, cheap, contemporary-looking Chinese goods. (This actually explained a lot – Marian and I had been wondering why so many “antique” shops had seven or eight old things and the rest of their inventory was Chinese-made junk.) Just as our generation wanted no part of our grandparents’ tatted dresser scarves or porcelain statues of 19^th century ladies carrying parasols, our children turn up their noses at antique silver ice cream spoons and crystal salt shakers. And, more puzzling, they think we are the ones without taste!!! They’re wrong, of course, but it seems that they have propagated to the point that they now rule, so there's little we can do. It’s a sad day when Baby Boomers no longer have the clout to dictate our will and good taste to the rest of the population.

Myrtle - Holly Springs - Tunica September 24, 2009

We left Tupelo about 9:00 on a cloudy Thursday morning and headed up new Highway 78. The first thing that caught our attention was the sign for Myrtle. Myrtle, Mississippi is an enticing name, isn’t it?

Yes, it is.

Sadly though, it appears that Myrtle is another small town that seems to be fading away. And what a shame that any place with a Town Hall like this would fade away.

As you can see from the picture, Myrtle has a Town Hall totally out of keeping with the town I’ve been describing here, and one has to wonder if it’s a remnant from Myrtle’s better days. It’s a beautiful old house.

The photo above is of a beautiful old house, but mostly we drove through Myrtle saying, “Now, with some work, that could be a beautiful house.” Over and over again we said this, and there’s something sad about that.

ASHLAND

And, with a sigh, we were off to Ashland – a little out of the way, but worth a visit. It’s in the hill country, you know, and it actually has a mountain area look to it. The town of Ashland is really small, but it was a beautiful drive.

SNOW LAKE SHORES

The photo above is of Snow Lake Shores, a real “Whaa? Stop the car!” place. We were just driving over a bridge when we looked to our right and saw the most beautiful lake. There are houses all around the lake. They look like the sort of houses that people built years ago when you could buy a piece of land, pick out a house plan, and build a house without having to consult a committee or get anything approved. In fact, that's just the way it came about. It was developed during the 50s.

The houses all back up to the lake, and have really deep back yards that slope down to the lake, where each house has its own small covered boat dock. It was so serene, so incredibly beautiful, so unexpected.

HOLLY SPRINGS

We got to Holly Springs around 10:45 and made (the HBCU) Rust College our first stop. It is really pretty. There are several buildings that appear to be quite old (and therefore, have personality), a few that appear to just be old (and therefore, run down and dirty), and some lovely new buildings. The main building (pictured above) – one that appears to be the centerpiece of campus – has a date of 1947 on it, I believe, although the school dates to 1866.

Across the street from Rust sits the remains of Mississippi Industrial College. This, too, was an African American school, but more trade school than university. It opened in 1902 to educate blacks and train them for a total of three occupations (in case something happened to the first, or second, career choice). MIC closed in 1982, leaving five beautiful old buildings behind. Recently, someone has gotten the buildings onto the National Register of Historic Places, but the action seems to have stopped there. One building has collapsed, the rest are on their way; it’s a shame as they are gorgeous and a real loss.

Holly Springs has a nice town square. We weren’t there to see the town square though. Marian and I went to Holly Springs to see Graceland Too, something we assumed folks in Holly Springs wished would just go away. It is home to Paul McLeod and his son, Elvis Aaron Presley McLeod, who are devoting their lives to keeping Elvis’s memory alive. (And, goodness, don’t they have a lot of help there?)

All the rest of the Elvis impersonators and Elvis memorabilia collectors in the world don’t have a thing on these guys. Their goal is to compile the most thorough collection of Elvis-related items in the world – and they’re well on their way! This goal necessitates (in their minds, at least) keeping a record of every time Elvis has appeared on TV. Or, been the subject of a program on TV. Or had someone so much as mention his name on TV. You can only imagine how extensive this collection alone must be. It requires them to man a TV (or several) 24/7. They do this in 12 hour shifts with the help of VCRs and now, TIVO, which must have made their lives much easier. Consequently, these guys are home all the time, and they advertise that fact. We’re always home, they say, all you have to do is ring the bell, pay $5, and in you come!

Not so. 

They weren’t home/wouldn’t answer the door/whatever and we didn’t get in. We had to console ourselves with looking at the innumerable plastic 3’ tall Christmas trees they have placed along the top of the fence that surrounds the house.

Personally, Marian seemed a little too happy about us not getting in, but I really wanted to see it. I was sorely disappointed and will be dragging Marian back there.

Marian -- Happy? I seemed HAPPY? I wouldn't say HAPPY...........cheerful, contented, delighted, glad, jolly, overjoyed, thrilled, upbeat......yes, but.....cheez... Susan couldn't see the condition of this place up close. There was no bell....no door knocker...I knocked on the door and rapped on the window....but no one answered. The door didn't seem to be closed all of the way, so I pushed on it...but.. it was padlocked from within. Heck, I've seen this place on YouTube and, I promise you, there's no use in being rude and disturbing these people if they don't hear your first knock. These people need their rest!

Lunch…

We were hungry by then, so we set off for Phillips Grocery. It used to be the kind of grocery where the town’s working men would lunch on Vienna sausages, saltines and an RC, but they also cook food and they’re known for their hamburgers. In fact, they are actually in the book, “Hamburger America,” a copy of which they display for all to see. It’s a book that some guy wrote, rating the best hamburger joints in the U.S. (well, in 39 states at least). Only one other hamburger place in MS made the cut by the way, that being Bill’s in Amory. At $2.55, it was a fine burger. It didn’t knock our socks off, but it tasted like the burgers mom used to make – a real burger. Another nice thing they do at Phillips is offer a side of fried okra, which we thoroughly enjoyed. They have fried pies too – apple and peach. We split a yummy peach one.

As you can see, Phillips is in an old building, a circa-1900 store/home combo, a fairly narrow building with a porch and an upstairs where the owner lived. It was very conveniently located in its time too, right across the street from one of the prettiest train depots ever.

It’s not a fancy depot, but the picture hardly does it justice; it’s a striking red brick building (with a gorgeous brick walkway). It appears someone lives in the depot, judging from the plantation-shuttered upstairs windows and the note to the postman on the door, but it kind of gave us the creeps because the depot doesn't appear to have been refurbished or gentrified – it’s an old deserted train depot. It’s not falling in or anything... but it could be haunted nonetheless. The depot and Phillips are within touching distance of the train tracks, yet they still somehow seem isolated.

TUNICA

We left Holly Springs in plenty of time to get to Tunica for the highlight of our adventure, a trip down the Mississippi on the Tunica Queen. However, the highway (Highway 4, I believe) is enchanted, and somehow cast us onto another highway headed in the wrong direction. While the scenery was lovely, it was not going to take us to Tunica, and it took a while to right ourselves. I won’t go into all the boring details; suffice it to say, blah, blah, blah, we got to the dock at 2:26 for a 2:30 departure.

Perhaps this would be a good time to mention that I broke my ankle two months ago, and I’m still incapacitated. I can’t put any weight on my left leg, which is a real hindrance because in this particular case, I had to hop on my crutches down a tall set of steps while Marian carted my wheelchair down. Then I hopped into my chair and held on to my crutches while Marian flew down this (very steep and therefore very scary) ramp. Apparently, they held the boat for a couple minutes to allow us to get on, so…we made it! Sure was close though.

Neither Marian nor I had ever navigated the Mississippi, and we aren’t getting any younger, you know, so we figured this was our chance. Incredibly though, we were about the youngest people aboard, so I guess we still had plenty of time and just didn’t know it.

We found the Mississippi to be very interesting. Did you know that there is a 50’ fluctuation in water height on the river? True! That’s why the docks along the MS are floating rather than stationary. The river only flows about 4 miles an hour, which doesn’t sound like much at all, but that sucker is full of movement. It’s possible to see signs of movement from the top of the water, in the form of large circles. They look like the equivalent of crop circles on water. They’re just flat, glassy places in the water, 5-8 feet across, sometimes more. They’re everywhere, each one signifying that something is going on underneath the water. 

Then, there are little tiny places that look like water being sucked down a drain. People who know the Mississippi have great respect for it due to the fact that they fear it, but our ignorance had precluded having such fears. Now we're scared of it too!

We motored upriver for 45 minutes before turning around and coming back, and that whole time we didn’t see one other boat or barge or anything. That’s not good. You see, the banks of the Mississippi are not particularly interesting – they’re flat and tree-lined, and they’re virtually identical, so you get the same view coming and going. A few barges or boats, even a tow boat with nothing to tow, would have enhanced the experience exponentially. That said, it was still fun, although it would have been more fun if I could have wandered the boat and perhaps, sat up top. As it was, I can't do any of those things, so Marian parked my wheelchair in the second level bow (entry and exit point) and I had quite a good view.

Bally’s

After our boat ride, we checked out a casino. Although neither of us is a gambler, you just can’t go to Tunica and NOT go to a casino. We chose Bally’s purely for convenience. We went through the front door and were immediately aware that smoking is not outlawed everywhere in Mississippi after all.

Marian wheeled me around till we found a penny machine (I told you we weren’t gamblers) and then we tried to figure out how to work it. Now, I go to Las Vegas every year or so and am not unfamiliar with slot machines, but these were puzzling. Worse, I was in my wheelchair, Marian’s hair is (prematurely) white, and the combo causes us to look, well, old and inept.

An employee took pity on us and tried to give us a tutorial in using the machines, but she soon gave up and found us one with a handle to pull. THAT’S what we had wanted in the first place! So, Marian and I sat side by side at our penny slots and played away. What a picture we must have made!

Those penny slots really pay off, but sadly, it’s all in pennies. Our employee/tutor kept urging me to play the full board, which added up to 90 cents a pull, but I stood my ground at 5 or 10 cents a hit. She told me that I couldn’t win the progressive jackpot that way, and I told her that I wasn’t going to win the progressive jackpot anyway. She said, “You never know.” and I said, “Yes, I do.”

I learned a long time ago that as far as casinos go, you are a winner or a loser and I’m a loser. I can accept that, but it must have been hard for her because she gave up and went away then. It was shortly after that that Marian and I decided it was time to cash out, to take our winnings and go. So, we took our $3.52 cents and left for home.