Mississippi - Day 10 - to Meridian

Benchmark Coach & RV Park, Marion
Friday, 10 January 2020

very low lake level

Despite the low lake level at last night's campground, there's at least one Bald Eagle that hangs around there.  I know because I heard it calling several times when I was walking the dogs early in the morning.  At first I thought I was making it up because surely there weren't eagles this far south.  But the bird book says there are - I'm either on the side of the line on the book's map that says they come here in the winter, or I'm on the side where they live year round.

today's route

The whole idea of this driving trip came from the many times Momma and I would whiz across Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama on the interstate, seeing almost nothing of these states as we were going to and from Florida.  As we passed by, I wondered about the people who lived in these states and about what the rest of these states looked like, wondered about their lives and what their towns were like and how they earned a living.  That's where I got the idea of spending a month in every state.  Compared to spending mere hours in these states, it seemed a very long time.  Now I'm learning that most states have so much diversity that 2 months would be a more realistic time frame. 

So today, as you can see on the map, I strenuously avoided the interstate and wended my way east, then north to Meridian.  I wanted to take that highway in black (Route 42) that runs more directly to the town of State Line (creative name), but part way along there's a bridge washed out and no easy detour that I could see, so I took the longer route.

I spent the drive worried about the storm warnings forecast for all of Mississippi that included damaging winds, thunderstorms and tornadoes.  Very worrying.  They were forecast to come in during the night and tomorrow, but Nature can surprise the forecasters and I wanted to be somewhere near help, if it turned out I needed it.  In fact, the storm's winds didn't start picking up until we were actually in Meridian, so it was okay.

On the drive
I heard on the radio that quite a few inmates in MS state prisons are being moved to a privately-run prison.  Last week, 3 inmates were killed at Parchman Prison and, when the news became public, MS's ghastly prison conditions were exposed yet again.  Parchman has been called "notorious" for good reason.  This 2018 article from American Public Media does a good job of explaining not only its past but also its near-present.   https://www.apmreports.org/inside-parchman

Today being Friday, MS public radio plays a program called The Gestalt Gardener, which is very popular, judging from the people calling in.  I learned that this unusually warm weather we've been having is called a Blackberry Winter by country folks.

I learned that growing greens is trickier than you'd think.  You have to harvest them before it gets too hot, because heat makes them bitter.  But you can't plant them too early or they'll freeze, though cold weather early can make them sweeter.  Those really great turnip greens I had yesterday weren't enough to make me ready to run out and grow them, but I thought this was interesting.

I passed a church named Mahned Church of God.  I have no idea where that name came from because the church's homepage is on Facebook and I couldn't get details on the regular information pages.  Odd name, though, here in rural eastern Mississippi.

I saw lots of leftover birds' nests in the branches of bare trees.  I also saw a lot of clumps of mistletoe.

US Hwy. 98, that I took going east, is a lot like an interstate in many places - solid trees on either side so I can't even see the country as I pass along.

All day I saw a lot of filled logging trucks going the other way.

I passed Cluck & Buck Lane, and Bodacious Road.  A sense of humor is alive and well in rural MS.

The second half of my drive was on northbound Route 57, which varied between 2 lanes and 4 lanes with a median - but neither type of roadway had rest areas or even shoulders.  I drove for many miles with no ability at all to pull over, except the turnoffs to the few scattered small towns along the way.  That was a problem because by then, the dogs and I all needed to stop and take a break.  I finally found what looked like an almost abandoned plant of some kind with a large parking area and we stopped there.  Though there were only 2 cars parked out front, it turned out to be an active plant of some kind that seemed to be dealing with metal in some way - no signs at all so I couldn't figure it out.  Their parking lot, though, is apparently used during emergency evacuations as a rest or staging area, based on the only signs I saw, telling people where to park.

Driving north, I passed a lot of crop fields (though I couldn't tell what they'd be planted with) and cows and a tree farm.  Lots of pine trees, which I think were being farmed.

I passed through the small town of Buckatunna, which sounded like a joke to me, but I learned it's named after Buckatunna Creek, which I also passed over, and comes from a Chocktaw word.

I saw a sign indicating Little Mission O.H. Church.  I'm sure that's what the sign said, but I can't find any reference to it online so don't know what it's about.  I think the church was down a narrow road that turned off Rt. 58 so wouldn't have gone looking for it in my RV, but I'm curious.

There was a lot of water standing in the median - so much that I saw a Great Egret and a Great Blue Heron both fishing in the same patch of it.  But it was the middle of a 4-lane highway so where would the fish have come from?

South of Meridian I passed what looked like a really tiny oil refinery - pipes and tanks and a pipe with flame on the top.  That couldn't be it, though, because I've seen zero indication there's oil under MS.  Looked odd, though.

All along MS's roads I see signs saying, in various ways, please don't litter.  And all along the roads I see a lot of litter - and it almost seems like there's more in the vicinity of these signs.  It's not quite as bad as - was it Virginia that has such a problem? - but it's much more noticeable in MS than in anywhere I've been for a while.  Too bad.

I've seen a lot of Trump 2020 support in this area.

Meridian
I'd intended to keep going through town to the campground, which is actually in Marion just north of Meridian.  But that storm was starting to come through, the wind was picking up and clouds looked more ominous, so I thought I'd go by the carousel I'd mainly come for and just check.  I'd seen online that these days it's only open on Saturday afternoons, and I thought I'd better see if maybe they'd posted any signs about whether their hours would change due to thunderstorms or tornadoes.

It turned out to be a good thing I checked - there was a sign and it said they were closed to the public altogether, though it could be booked for parties now and then.  So even if I'd gone to the trouble of unhooking from the campsite tomorrow and come into town, I wouldn't have been able to see any more than I did today.  Which was this:

I took this photo through a window - you can see there's a lot of daylight coming in.  It was built in 1896 by Gustav Dentzel, a German immigrant, who built the carousel for the 1904 St. Louis Exposition.  It was eventually bought by Meridian for the new amusement park they were putting together, along with its house that was also designed by Dentzel.

the sign above the door says 1909, which was when it was installed here

The carousel is the world's only surviving 2-row stationary Dentzel menagerie carousel.  And the house is the world's last surviving carousel house that was built from a Dentzel blueprint.  Right here in Meridian, MS.  How about that?

The carousel is still in Highland Park, the area built to be an amusement park, and many of the original buildings are still there, including a 1909 gazebo and a 1930s swimming pool.  I'm sure at any other time of the year, this park looks really pleasant, but when we were there, it looked desolate.  Standing water, dead leaves, litter.  It just seemed a shame.

Also in the park is the Jimmie Rodgers Museum, to honor the native son who is known as the Father of Country Music and was the first person inducted (posthumously) in the Country Music Hall of Fame.  He died in 1933 of TB at the age of 36.  I was surprised to see how many of his songs I knew, given my nearly nonexistent knowledge of him or of original country music.   https://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/jimmie-rodgers  The museum didn't tempt me because it looked like an abandoned shed, although I'm sure it was nothing of the kind.  Maybe I was looking in the wrong place, having yet again gotten lousy directions from Google and ending up on muddy, rutted, dead-end roads.  With more time, better weather, and during tourist season, I'd spend more effort trying to find it.

I went on to the campground, getting there during a deluge of rain, complete with thunder and lightning.  It took a while before I was willing to get out of the RV to plug our electric cord in.  Gracie was terrified, of course, and when I got out of the RV she slipped out around my legs - apparently thinking her terror was coming from being in the RV.  I was holding the umbrella, which scared her again, and it took me about a minute before I could grab her and get her back inside. 

But that part of the storm blew over by suppertime, so we could go out for a walk without getting soaked.  It's a tiny campground next to a broad field that I was sure would attract deer.  In fact, on our last walk that night, I had trouble with both dogs when we got near it and assume that some interesting wild critter was out there.