I'm writing this from the provincial Comfort Inn of Oxford, MS. What a rough night! I dreamt I was a car muffler and when I woke up, I was exhausted!!! Hahahahahahahaha good joke, I heard that on Golden Girls. That Rose!
I started on my journey at 9am yesterday. After realizing that the banks were closed and I couldn't change my ridiculous monies for small bills, and conducting a semi-coherent search for coffee near the entrance to the Natchez, I actually got under way at more like 10. I took the Natchez Trace Parkway from the entrance near Loveless Cafe, with plans to get off at Tupelo (aka birthplace of Elvis).
It was a beautiful day and a lovely drive - lots of bikers of both kind to share the road with. Didn't stop much; I'm still practicing that sense of "ooh that'll be great, stop right now". I think it's related to that thing that makes me continue to look for the perfect driveway to turn around in when I've realized I'm driving in the wrong direction. I did make a stop at the bank of the Tennessee River, somewhere over the border to Alabama, where I met a nice middle-aged couple from Indiana traveling on their Harley. We chatted and I took their photo and told them of my spirit quest (not in those words) AND THEN they prayed for me, right there, on the side of the road. With no offense to my more religious friends, this all is still very foreign to me. But I went along with it. Lord knows I could probably use it.
It's interesting to note that their prayer did NOT mention food. After reaching Tupelo, I left the Trace and took highway 6 (which became decidedly un-scenic very quickly) west to Oxford, which you can read all about here. I decided to stop here for two reasons: Bill Bryson describes Oxford as as close to true small-town America as he can find in Lost Continent, and he's probably right, it's cute as all get-out. Nice town square, insanely gorgeous houses (my personal weakness), and even the Ole Miss campus is pretty nice, with all those stately Greek houses that UMass almost has except they look like tenements and occasionally burn to the ground. My other reason was to eat at City Grocery.
How was it? Here's a tip: when you realize it's a holiday weekend, CALL AHEAD. Closed. Figures, huh? But the chef has a breakfast place somewhere in town, and once I get my butt of this Comfort-able bed (see what I did there?) I'm going to find it. Grits, I'm coming!
Today's plan is to make my way to New Orleans, where I'll spend the next few days. If I take the straight route down the interstate it'll take 5.5 hours. This is naturally far too boring for me, so I'm going to try to take rt. 61 from Clarksdale, which'll be about 8.5 hours, BUT I get to see the Mississippi Delta. Nothing is more fun to look at than abject poverty, right? Either way, time to get my ass in gear.
a note on photos: I don't have the patience to deal with putting photos on this thing, I've tried it before and it drives me nuts. So find them on the book of faces.
A few statistics that I will be trying to track over this trip:
Miles traveled: ~242
Hours driving: 5
Number of times I have gone into a blind rage when Kings of Leon come on the radio: 1
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