March 23 to March 29, 2002

Saturday March 23 we bought a Walmart/ATT phone card, called the house and found all was well, then called Matt and left a message. We headed to the  rattlesnake roundup; we found the Big Springs County Fairgrounds (aka Rodeo Barn) and I noticed a "hissing" noise as we paid our admission to the snake area; Claire did not recognize it at first, but a PILE of rattlesnakes were all saying "Leave me alone" from a fenced area near the back of the room.

 Snake handlers from the American Business Council (AMBUCS for short) were showing the snakes to the crowd, harvesting their venom,

and occasionally butchering and skinning one.  They also had a snake show in which a lady stayed in a sleeping bag while many snakes were inserted into it, then eased out of it without (we assume) being bitten. This man kissed the hood of a cobra, while keeping the snake's attention focused on a derby hat.

 "Volunteers" from the crowd were selected to hold live rattlesnakes in their hands;  I was careful to remain low profile during the selection process... but I really wasn't "cute" enough for this show either.  :-)  

We ate fried snake ( it tasted pretty much like the oil it was fried in, and had LOTS of bones for the meat on them.  I did not dislike it, but it would take a lot of snake to make a meal).

We also finally got to try funnel cake for the first time. Batter is poured into deep fat through a funnel to make it.  This DID stick to the ribs...and may remain a few other places for quite a while.   :-)

We were disappointed we could not also try the delicious looking golden fried Texas Taters, but they would not fit in our overstuffed bellies. I talked with a Cellular One rep who volunteered that Cell One did not work in Dallas, but Verizon did.  This gave us a clue to BEAT FEET east toward Dallas to try and make the cellphone work this weekend.  We left Big Spring in early afternoon, and found digital service a few hours later. This is one plan that WORKED!  We stopped in Weatherford TX for the night and we're back in contact with the world!!  Jed and Carol had left voicemail  messages, the essence of which was  "are you dead?"  We apologize for causing concern;  the Walmart phone card should prevent future long term disconnects like this.  Thanks to Funnel Cake, we did not even need dinner this night....  :-)

Sunday March 24 we found Weatherford had very slow internet service, with a 2 bar digital signal strength. The internet worked but VERY slow.  We decided to fuel and move to a stronger signal area.  We tried to find a Cracker Barrel we could see, but the Next Exit book directions for it were bad, and we went on to a Walmart in Arlington near Dallas.  It had strong signal but slow internet too, and also "No Overnight Parking" signs.  We did the internet work we could do, and moved on to Canton after a nice early afternoon Mexican dinner at Don Pablo's in Arlington (Chicken Fahitas are Mmmm Mmmm Good). We felt that we would be better served by being east of the Dallas area by Monday morning, having experienced the workday traffic here before.  We made plans to see cousin Philip & Carol on Wednesday and cousin Nicki and David on Easter weekend.

Monday March 25 we planned a trip to Nashville via Natchez MS.  We bought groceries and fueled in the morning. Fuel prices are rising, so we plan to stay topped off when we can.  We stopped and changed oil in a rest stop; it was a bit windy and drizzling, but the change was overdue by 200 miles and we are driving heavily now. Under the hot engine it is quite warm, dry and cozy.  :-)) The truck parking areas seem good for this task, as they have level concrete for the creeper, and if we park behind where the truck tractors stop there are very few oil drippings on the concrete.  We are careful to add none ourselves.  :-)  We saw a beautiful Texas scissortail flycatcher sitting on a fence as we were leaving the rest stop.It gave us a spectacular display as it flew from fence wire to fence wire.

  We soon left Texas and enjoyed an interesting drive through Louisiana countryside; so GREEN, lots of dairy farms, water in roadside ditches, and it rained all day too. We are definitely back in the east!!  We stopped in Alexandria LA to make coffee before dark, and were glad we did;  the lonely countryside beyond would NOT have been the place to stop.  We saw a burned out RV sitting rusting along the road.  :-(    Natchez had rerouted US84 around the city, so we had to turn around to find our Walmart after first going the wrong way on the street it was on.

Tuesday March 26 it rained all night, sometimes heavy with thunder.  Cellphone service here is weak analog, so the phone ran out of battery and quit overnight. We fueled on the way to Natchez Visitors Center; the price is two cents higher than the night before when we came in. :-(   We really were too tired to fuel last night in the rain.  The visitors center had a nice video we paid $2 each to see; Claire bought a southern cookbook, and the saleslady recommended Mammy's Cupboard 5 miles out of town for lunch, and warned us to get there before 11:30.  We departed immediately; they had excellent food (we both ordered the lunch special, Brazilian beans) their special blueberry lemonade (quite tasty) which they served in pint jars and brought us a quart jar for a refill pitcher, and GREAT desserts.  When we returned to the visitors center via a stop at a laundromat Claire spotted that turned out to be closed for repairs; we parked and I noticed an RV sewer line laying in the grass.  Strange I thought, until I noticed the dump station next to it.  WOW, a free dump station in the visitors center, and we need it too.  I had to ask at the desk about a source of water, and a lady led me outside and pointed out the faucet intended for water filling across the parking lot; talk about southern hospitality!  :-))  We biked around Natchez, enjoying the river's edge area with the old buildings and new casino boat.

The newly stabilized bluff with restored old homes overlooking the river looked like a pleasant place to live.

There was even an oil well at the river's edge with the pump running steadily. I do wonder if it helps the tax rate...  :-)

The homes from before the civil war are quite spectacular, and this is the time of year to see them, with the azaleas, dogwoods and other flowers in full bloom.

This month many of the homes are open for tours (with a fee).  We were much tempted, but finally decided our short time here would be better spent on our bikes getting a flavor of the town and a bit of much needed exercise.  :-)  We returned tired from the hilly riding and chilly weather, took advantage of the available water to shower, filled water and dumped as the day was ending.  Claire got directions to a working laundromat; it was on our way back to Walmart.  We stopped and in a bit over an hour had CLEAN clothes.  :-) This Maytag Laundromat on Rt 61 had HOT dryers, and the cost to do our laundry was the lowest by far we have seen anywhere on our travels; the management had a sign posted apologizing for the recent price increase too....  :-)  We returned to the Walmart for the night, and I tried to use the cellphone; AGAIN it asked for a credit card!!  GRRRRRR.   I went in to Walmart to make the call using their payphone; afterwards I tried to call Verizon customer support to see what was going on.  The announcement came on that their 800 number could not be reached from a pay phone, only from a non pay phone.  Gee, I guess they fixed me!!  Cell phone does not work, and I cannot complain via pay phone either!!  :-(((((  We will drive Natchez Trace tomorrow to Clinton, and visit with cousin Phillip and Carol.  Maybe the cellphone will work from there??  :-)

Wednesday March 27 We started up the Natchez Trace Parkway at it's beginning 8 miles north of Natchez.  What a BEAUTIFUL drive; Spring flowers are everywhere, more stopping points of interest than we can possibly utilize, and almost NO traffic.  :-)  

The old  Natchez trail is still quite evident in many places, with the soil sunken many feet below the surrounding terrain by the heavy foot and animal traffic of the days before Mississippi River steamboats.

 Ancient Indian cultures used the route as well, leaving their mounds as a long lasting memorial.  Emerald mound is the  second largest in the US, built with only hand labor; it is hard to imagine how many basket loads of dirt were required to build this.....  

Old Inns, or "Stands" as they were called lined the trace; some still remain and are maintained by the National Park Service.  Purry enjoyed visiting Mount Locust with us, and the friendly park ranger was quite accomodating.

 Claire thought he'd better not have an opportunity to claim all this as his alone, though.... :-).

 By mid afternoon we arrived in Clinton, and found cousin Phillip's house, and were greeted by Phillip and Buddy.  

We planned the stop for Phillip's day off, and had a great time visiting with him, and Kylene who had driven all night from Chicago to enjoy some Mississippi springtime, and sacrificed her catch up sleep to visit with us as well. Phillip presented us with a FUNNY CAKE he had baked; I cannot recall the last one I had, but these were a much favored Pennsylvania Dutch treat when we were growing up.  THANK YOU Phil!!   Later Carol came home from work, and we were joined by her parents who live nearby.  Carol's father was born in one of the houses overlooking the river in Natchez that we had biked past when we were there. Time flew by too fast as it always does when visiting friends and relatives.  We planned to sample the local cuisine, and thouroughly enjoyed real southern dining at Catfish Heaven near Clinton;  Their catfish was SUPERB; not a trace of muddy flavor, succulent, delicious, and in quantity that required a "doggie" box ("Doggie" Dad enjoyed that for lunch next day as well....).

We stopped at the Dairy Queen for a sweet treat on the way home to put a cap on a most enjoyable day!  We thought it best to move the RV from in front of Phillip's house for the night before anyone could complain, and Phillip led us to Clinton's new Super Walmart that was not on our list.  As always, this was a well lighted and secure sleeping place for us.

Thursday March 28 I awoke early and used the time to archive some pictures to CD to recover more hard drive space, then prepared a CD of pictures for Phillip.  He stopped by for breakfast on the way to a volunteer assignment in a local food pantry; we thought it would be our treat, but Phil brought a box of donuts, so we could not let THEM get stale...  :-)  Phil had to get on with his day, and we headed back up the Natchez Trace as planned.   We drove past grassy fields lining the roadway filled with wildflowers.  We enjoyed them overlooking the reservoir, and photographed them, but departed before the arriving mowing crew could take it's toll on them.

We walked through a Tupolo-Cypress Swamp and enjoyed the serenity and wildlife.

 Shortly we came upon a parking place near a flowering tree we had been trying to identify, and a closeup view compared with our tree book confirmed Carol's parents' idea that we had been seeing redbud trees in bloom along the trace; they are remarkably beautiful in their early spring covering of small pinkish purple flowers, and really stand out as we drive along the parkway.

There are more Indian mounds to see, and other nature areas with parking suitable for a 10 to 20 minute walk; by late afternoon we were tired and started passing up those stops of lesser interest to us.  We pulled into the Super Walmart in Tupolo MS for the night, rather happy to be so well fed from yesterday; no dinner required tonight!  A quick look through Sams and Walmart produced a few items we were looking for, a phone call verified the cellphone was working here, and we retired EARLY for the night.

Friday March 29 we ran about 50 miles on the trace, taking in a special event for National Women's Week at the Natchez Trace Parkway headquarters and visitors center.  The six term lady mayor of Madison MS spoke about her experiences in southern politics, and her efforts to preserve the quality of life in her city through planning with citizen input, followed by strict zoning enforcement and sign control. Businesses followed the good people who prefered to live in this improved environment into Madison. The park superintendent took the opportunity to recognize the many contributions of the women park employees.  The visitors center was filled for the event.  Many attendees were park employees, and we certainly did enjoy the "bait"; delicious refreshments offered to all, many prepared by park employees.  We continued up the trace, stopping at the points of interest and enjoying the scenery.  One stop amazed me; I did not realize we were still building major canals in this country, but the 234 mile long Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway was just completed in 1982, after having been repeatedly proposed since the mid 1700's.  It links the Tennessee River with the Tombigbee River, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile AL, cutting many miles off a barge trip to the upper Tennessee Valley and the Ohio River Valley.

We stopped at a limestone cave covering a spring which has been here a long time; the acids in the water have leached out the limestone, causing the cave to weaken and be unsafe to enter.

We then turned off the parkway south of the Tennessee River and arrived in Decatur AL around nightfall; we passed one closed Walmart before finding this brightly lit open Super Walmart.  It's a nice store, and has a wine section we missed in the Mississippi Walmarts.  We fueled, although Murphy's here did not give the usual 3 cent discount for using Walmart's gift card; Murphy's did seem to be at least 3 cents under the local market though.  Bad weather is predicted, and rain started as I called Nicki around 9PM. It rained as hard as I have ever seen; lightning took out the Walmart parking lot lights for an hour or so. Claire turned on the weather radio and found tornado warnings were posted for Morgan County where we are, but the sightings were all east of us and moving east. We noted the weather service warning to put as many walls between us and the outside as possible, and decided one wall would have to do for us now.  We put on parking lights to avoid being hit by cars moving blind from rain on the dark lot. Murphy's gas station still had lights and was doing a lot of business.   :-)  We never felt any violent motion in the RV, but the rain blew horizontal, noise from rain on the roof and windows put sleep out of the question, and we heard what may have been some hail, but we could not see it on the ground.  In 2 hours it had passed and we drifted off to sleep; thank goodness no were leaks apparent in the RV.  :-)

PLANS; We will head next to Nashville to see the sights there next week, then head north along the portions of the Blue Ridge Parkway we missed in the Fall if weather permits.  As we move further north we will have to pay much more attention to our weather radio than we have been doing, lest we experience that dreaded "S" word; SNOW.  :-)  Hope you're enjoying these pages;  we sure enjoy the travels!