Fayetteville, TN/ TN Central Railroad

Marian and I have ventured far north in our travels this time. So far, in fact, that we ended up in Tennessee. Well, okay, we intended to be in Tennessee all along, I just said that. We debated whether or not to post Tennessee travels on a Mississippi web site, but finally decided to just go for it since we hadn’t been able to do any Mississippi traveling for a couple months anyway. So, here goes.

Friday, October 29

We went to Fayetteville on Friday so that Marian could see Sir’s Fabrics, a store I’ve been telling her about for years and a place that turned out to be all she had hoped it would be! That’s rare, you know, places you hear about for years almost always turn out to be a disappointment when you finally see them. We got there via I-24, a beautiful drive that took us through Lynchburg, Tennessee, a town that has really spiffed itself up in the last few years. We vowed to go back some day soon and check it all out. Then we zipped on over to Fayetteville.

This old home was fabulous, as you can readily see --
just a block away from Sir's.
Notice the outside staircase that connected the porches.

Sir’s is where (and how) I make the purchases that allow me to maintain my extensive fabric collection which – by the way – pales in comparison to Marian’s fabric collection. (M. -- yep, I win this race!) We both enjoy the collecting much more than the actual sewing, which is much harder and less fun, and we found plenty of lovely, colorful items to add to our stashes. Like always, we went in vowing only to buy things we could use to make immediate gifts for our family and friends but, like always, we just bought what we liked. Our new fabrics will join the older, more established stacks of unused fabrics that enhance virtually every spare drawer, shelf, and closet in our homes. ( M. here.... I've actually USED some of the fabric lately and really needed to restock some of my stash -- really, I did.....)

Sights around Fayetteville's town square.

Fayetteville has undergone quite a change since I was last there. New businesses have come to town – primarily antique shops (yea!!!) – and we found a new “coffee place” for lack of a better term – a warmer sort of Starbuck’sish place. We ate lunch there and it was fabulous! We had the daily special (a lasagna roll and salad, if you’re interested) and maybe it was just because we had gone there not expecting much, but it was great. We also walked/drove around town a bit, shopped a few antique stores, and were generally impressed. Fayetteville is a cool town full of beautiful old homes. The town square should be a guide to other town-square towns trying to gentrify themselves, because Fayetteville did it right. They’ve painted, fixed up, and – most importantly – have not torn down these charming old buildings. Really pretty.



The stores are brightly colored and well detailed...downtown Fayetteville. The blue storefront is actually an old theater, with the name spelled out against a blue tile background.

We left Fayetteville to drive back to Nashville on I-65, which is by far the better route between the two places – Fayetteville’s closer to I-65 and there are no small towns to pass through. It’s also faster because the countryside right outside Fayetteville is home to one of the grandest boondoggles in the entire country: the four-lane highway that connects the town to the interstate. Miles and miles of four-lane it is, with a wide median and both inside and outside shoulders of approximately eight feet. Did I mention that this is in the middle of nowhere? It is. There are breaks every so often to allow drivers to turn (but they must be used only to turn around because there is no place to turn into) and some of the driveways/roads/paths off the shoulder have been paved for the first ten or twelve feet, even though they don’t go anywhere except to someone’s pasture. It’s the sort of sight that makes one ask: Who has this kind of pull? And, can such a feat be pulled off by a state legislator, or must a project of this size and level of absurdity be the “work” of a national legislator? I imagine finding out who owns the surrounding land would answer at least one of those questions, even if only in part. Admittedly, it’s a beautiful drive, although slightly less so for knowing that my tax dollars paid for it.

Saturday, October 30

Our Fayetteville trip was a wonderful diversion, but the real purpose of our get-together was Saturday’s trip: a ride on the excursion train to Cookeville, Tennessee, a small town on the Cumberland Plateau. Cookeville is ninety miles east of Nashville, a distance that can be covered in approximately an hour and twenty minutes on Interstate 40, or three hours by train. Hmmm.

Excursion trips are actually fund raisers for the Tennessee Railway Museum; Nashville has no passenger train service. Volunteers organize a dozen or so such trips every year because it takes a lot of money to keep trains maintained and in running order, given that they are old trains to begin with and not getting any younger. Many, if not all, of the cars have a bit of their history posted on one of their walls – how old it is, what railroad line it was with, what route it worked, etc. I noticed that one car dated to the 1950s, and I imagine most of them were around the same age, because these are old, clattering train cars, nothing at all like the whisper-quiet Amtrak trains running between, say, D.C. and NYC. Those trains whisk passengers along; the museum’s trains chug passengers along.



The museum has 4 separate layouts of HO model trains.



The museum offers quite a few types of excursions: Thomas the Tank Engine trips, Santa Claus trips, murder/mystery trips, a spring trip to see dogwoods in bloom, winery trips, two fall leaf-peeper trips, and maybe a couple of others. They’re virtually all sellouts. It is amazing the lengths people will go to to ride a train when their town has no rail service. We trainless folk tend to romanticize train travel when, in fact, if you really think about it, a train ride is little more than a really slow flight with more intimate views and nastier bathrooms. Travel is travel, after all; it’s all a matter of attitude.

The outside of the cars were very spiffy -- all polished up
and emblazoned with Tennessee Railroad.
The bright orange caboose was at the end of the train for our return trip.

Marian and I have a great attitude! And, we were able to do something on a train that neither of us has ever been able to do on a plane – buy a full-fare first class ticket. Actually, we were willing to spring for the dome car, an expensive ticket to be sure – but what a view! There is only one dome car though, and it only holds twenty people, so it was already sold out by the time we heard about the trip. Maybe next time. A first class ticket buys you comfy two-by-two seating and a window. Well, in truth, it just rents you those things. There’s coach seating as well, which consists of four to six chairs around a table. That could be fun if you’re with a party or get interesting people at your table, but miserable if you land a batch of blowhards or whiners. That’s too big a gamble for us, so it was first class all the way.

We got to the museum/depot very early for our 8:00 a.m. departure, but lots of people got there before us. And they just kept coming and coming and coming. (Marian -- Dave, our Wilford Brimley look-alike conductor, told me this leaf-peeper trip carried about 400 passengers.) As we all moved en masse toward our assigned cars, it looked like we were at a busy train station, really going somewhere – like we were boarding The City of New Orleans, or the California Zephyr or something. Of course, it also looked like we had all, simultaneously, forgotten our luggage.

Marian and I settled into our seats, and at precisely 8:00 the train pulled out of the station. Despite the fact that railroad tracks tend to run through the ugliest parts of town, we found the scenery fascinating. We were just so happy to be riding a train! Marian had never ridden one before – not too surprising since Tupelo has no passenger service – although Barry did remind her that she had ridden the train at Disney World. Seriously. He told her that. Lucky me, I’ve ridden lots of trains but still find it exciting. (M. -- The chugging of our old passenger train delighted more than just the riders -- all along our route we saw people who had brought their children to see the passenger train go by....smiling and waving ...made me feel like a celebrity..)

That's the front of our train...4 engines to pull the 15 or so cars.
See the caboose? It's right behind the 4th engine.
On our return trip, the engines were swapped to the other end of the train,
leaving the caboose to trail us -- as well it should!

Most of our fellow passengers fell into the 40-60 age group. The younger people tended to be part of large family groups, with the exception of one carload of folks who had rented the whole car for a party of some sort. That had to be fun! They didn’t go into Cookeville with us; the train stopped a few miles west of Cookeville, at a winery, to let them off and we picked them up on the way back. That really had to be fun!

Roy, our conductor...84 and enjoying his "retirement".

The train attendants were an older group as well. (Some were actually pre-war.) I never saw the engineer, who in my mind’s eye was a young, healthy individual, skilled at his work and dedicated to the job of keeping me safe. But the staff I did see – they’re all volunteers – were very nice and very chatty, and I worry that there is no one coming along to replace these fine people and keep the museum going. There was only one young guy working (he may have been in high school, actually), and he looked for all the world like the railroad conductor in a children’s book. He really did. He even wore a dark, conductor-looking suit. I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if he had pulled a little metal thingy out of his pocket and punched everyone’s tickets. (Ticket punching would have been a nice touch, but it didn’t happen.)

At any rate, I doubt there is a harder working group of volunteers anywhere. This was a 12-15 hour day for them, and not only are they in charge of crowd control, announcements, and tidying up, but in Cookeville they must physically turn each dome and first class seat around so that people don’t have to ride backward all the way home.


There was a bit of color..in spite of the drought and winds.

The scenery along the route was beautiful – albeit in a mostly leafless sort of way (thanks to the drought and a recent storm). It was especially pretty as we neared the plateau and began climbing a couple of mountains. Well, they are more foothills than mountains, but to people from Mississippi they are mountains, and as we climbed, the train traveled on tracks that appeared to have been carved into the very edge of the mountainside. Our neighbors across the aisle – who, incredibly, slept through a good part of the scenic train ride they paid for – had nothing but a wall of trees and brush right up against their window; Marian and I had an expansive vista. We could see for miles around. We could see everything except the ground alongside the track we were traveling on because there was no ground alongside the track we were traveling on. There was just a sheer drop straight down the mountain. It made Marian nervous, and I’ll admit it was somewhat daunting to press your forehead right up against the glass and look straight down and see nothing there to hold up the train. We ventured outside once to stand between the cars and feel the fresh air and see the scenery up close, although admittedly, we stood on the mountain side, not the chasm side.

(Marian -- Oh, my...this is one of the most vibrant memories of the train trip. Although the conductor told us that each car on the train weighed nearly 250,000 pounds and wouldn't tip over, I had serious doubts about his ability to predict the future. As I looked out my window, it appeared that we were on the edge of a cliff with nothing except a few small trees between us and the river/rocks/land below. Susan, the brave one, wasn't sitting on the edge of air ...she kept telling me to look out toward the horizon, not down. Easy for her to say!)

Our caboose --yep, it was orange! Hey, we're in Tennessee!

The weather was perfect, by the way, and when we got to Cookeville everyone piled off to shop or dine or both. Cookeville is a small town, and I imagine having a train come along and bring hundreds of hungry shoppers right to your doorstep for two and a half hours is a great boon to local merchants. We browsed through several cute gift shops and a couple of antique stores, but it was such a beautiful day that we just wanted to walk around and enjoy being outside. Well, actually it was the siren song of that cupcake shop just off the main drag that lured us out and away, but still, we walked outside. Then we boarded the train for the ride home which, surprisingly, was as much fun as the ride up. 

Tennessee countryside.

(M.... I would like to add one little note....the couple who was seated across from us asked if we would like to switch sides for the return trip down the mountain. I really didn't want to see the bottom of that chasm again from the outside fringe of the mountain and Susan didn't mind...so, we switched. They promptly fell asleep with the rocking of the train, again....)


An old steam engine in Cookeville.



So, that’s our latest adventure. We came home exhausted, but after a good night’s sleep we rallied over coffee Sunday morning and then Marian got to drive the Natchez Trace back home. The Trace between Nashville and Tupelo is the prettiest part by far – nothing like the pleasantly dull drive from Tupelo to Jackson. It inspired Marian to plan a Trace excursion as one of our future trips – when we can find someone going to or from Nashville to drop one or the other of us off. Then we can ride the length of the Trace together, stopping at all of those sights/sites that look so interesting on the signposts, but are a bit too secluded to stop at when you’re alone.

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.