Mississippi - Day 15 - to Starkville

Indian Mound Campground, Starkville
Wednesday, 15 January 2020

The rain finally petered out around 5:00 this morning, and I'm tired of this campground, plus my month here is half over with much of the state still to be seen, so I'm heading out.

today's route

Today I'm heading north to Kosciusko and Starkville (home of MS State Univ.) via the Natchez Trace Parkway.  First I had to get out of Jackson.

On the road
Normally I'd have picked up the Natchez Trace Parkway just a few miles from the campground, but a big section of the parkway is closed for some reason, so I had to go around, which meant going through town.  This time I stuck to interstates as the most direct route to the parkway.

I passed Medgar Evers Blvd. and realized I'd forgotten this was his state.  Aside from him having been a civil rights worker who was assassinated, I couldn't remember anything about him so looked him up.  Very interesting and courageous man.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Medgar-Evers  Apparently Rob Reiner made a movie about the third and finally successful trial of his killer, called Ghosts of Mississippi, with an all-star cast.  Evers was a WWII veteran and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Natchez Trace Parkway
Driving the parkway was one of the main points of the day.  This parkway runs up nearly to Nashville, and I'd wanted to pick it up both in TN and in AL, where it cuts across the northwestern corner, but never had the opportunity.  So that's what today was about.

It's an actual parkway - sort of 1950s style - 1 lane each direction with no shoulder, lined for its length by thick stands of trees on either side.  Good road surface, 50 mph speed limit, turnoffs for historic sites and scenic overlooks and trails.  Markers at the turnoffs explaining various aspects, such as the one explaining the Tupelo-Bald Cypress Swamp in that area.  I saw 4 Great Egrets together near a swampy area.

Through the trees I sometimes saw scattered houses and crop lands and herds of cows. 

I was sure there must be deer in the area and, at one point, I did in fact see a deer crossing the road.

I saw Bluebirds and Cardinals a few times.

All the rain we've had left a lot of standing water and soggy ground along the way, and I often saw Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons at these areas.  Again, just because there's water doesn't mean there's fish.  Where would the fish come from?

The parkway doesn't allow commercial trucks and, considering how narrow it is, I can see why.  There're no traffic jams and no intersections.  There are marked exits for a town or highway but no interchanges or traffic lights.  Just the parkway.

I imagine in the summer it's a lovely, cool drive.  It's more a pleasant drive than a scenic one.  There's nothing really to see but trees and the occasional bird or mammal.

Kosciusko
I think this name is pronounced KAH-zee-OO-skoh (that's how someone on the radio pronounced it).  I stopped here partly because we all needed a break but mostly because this is where Oprah Winfrey was born and I was curious.  It's also the birthplace of James Meredith (the first African-American to enroll at Univ. of MS) and Charlie Musselwhite (known as a "white bluesman").  In other words, this place seems to produce mold-breakers.

But whatever happens here isn't obvious to a casual visitor.  It's the county seat and has the usual courthouse on a square.

a surprisingly magnificent building that overshadows its surroundings

As I'm starting to expect, Google's instructions were way off.  It missed the turn off the parkway by a couple of miles, meaning I had to decide to backtrack to get here.  And once here I found the streets didn't go like Google said they'd go.  But I got here.

I found what seemed to be a municipal parking lot (it was unlabeled) a block off the square and we stopped there for a while.  Walked around town a bit, ate some lunch, took some photos.

Google had told me to go on this street.

As you can sort of see, the yellow center line is almost to the curb - it's not wide enough for anything but a bicycle there.  There's a solid white line on the left side that usually means don't cross the line - for parking or something.  As you see, there is enough space there for cars alongside the building on the left; it's the 1st Methodist Church and it takes up the entire block.

I first came at this intersection from the other side, heading this way.  But when I got to this block I was stumped.  No indication that it was one-way or two-way, except a car was coming toward me in the direction I'm facing in this photo.  The cars you see on the left above are parked and facing different directions.  I was afraid to go forward from the other side, because it didn't say one-way but where would I drive with those cars parked on what seemed to be my side?  I went around the block.

I later saw people driving on that road as if it were a two-way street, dodging the parked cars if they were coming this way.  And since this intersection is only a block away from the courthouse square, it's a main street and used by lots of cars - at least while I was there.  I took this photo just after I came out of that municipal parking lot.  It was just weird.

That's a vacant lot on the right where the trees are.  A block from the main square, across from the huge Methodist church, and it's a vacant lot.

I'm guessing this street indicates something about the way folks think around here.

I honestly didn't see much of anything else here that I haven't mentioned.  Just services, like a drug store and auto repair - like that.  The city itself says it has "minimum opportunity for industrial development" and "looks toward tourism as a means for economic development."  I gotta say, they've got a ways to go to develop tourism.

Back on the road
Here and there along the parkway are places where folks can pick up the original Natchez Trace, what's called the Old Trace.  It's still accessible in some places for hiking, though I never figured out where folks would park.

I've been noticing that there's red dirt here in MS just like in AL.

I turned off the parkway and headed east toward Starkville.  I passed a turnoff for Sturgis - looks like most states have a town with that name.

Starkville
I went first to a place I was assured was the main drop-off point for recycling and that it would accept glass.  Well, when I got there I saw no indication that they accepted glass and the bins that would have held other recyclables were missing.  I guess they'd been hauled off to be emptied and not returned.  I couldn't get rid of a thing.  Disappointing.

I went next to a business called Aspen Bay Candles.  As far as I could tell it was a local business and I was hoping to find a small factory.  But I never found anything at all.  The place that seemed online to be the headquarters turned out to be either a Dairy Queen or the vacant lot next to it.  The only other place I found online was a specialty shop downtown where, I assume, they sold the candles.  But that's not at all what I was looking for so I kept going.  Disappointed once again.

I went next to the Welcome Center at Mississippi State University, where I'd heard there was an extensive clock collection I wanted to see.  Yet again Google left out some very vital piece of information or other - none of the roads or signs looked like it had told me it would so I got lost.  I wandered around campus some, which was a bit of a trick since classes must have just let out and students were pouring all over the place, and dodging them with the RV was interesting.

I saw the football stadium in the distance and aimed for that, knowing the Welcome Center was across the street from it.  And found it.  What I also found was that it shares the building with the US's 2nd largest Barnes and Noble outlet, the official MSU bookstore.  The small parking lot was packed, pedestrians were everywhere, and the next door lot (which charged to park) was also nearly full.  Not a chance in the world I could get in to the Welcome Center.  Disappointed yet again.

I then (hesitantly) followed Google's instructions to a place called The Little Dooey, supposed to be a local institution for BBQ, I thought.  I wasn't hungry - it was only about 1:30 - I'd expected to get here later in the day anticipating stops at a candle factory and a clock collection  But I'd been promising to walk the dogs so thought I could stop here.  Well, parking was slim here too because it was on such a narrow street that there was no street parking; it had its own parking lot, but the sign said parking was for Little Dooey's only and even at that time of day I didn't want to push it.  So I decided to walk the dogs and then get BBQ.  We walked (dangerously) along the narrow street to another narrow street, and finally got to sidewalks and went around the block.

In repayment for letting me park, I went to get some barbecue and got another surprise.  They indeed sell their own barbecue, but they mostly expect customers to get pulled pork sandwiches or chicken wings or crawdads.  They had a lot of all those things for fairly reasonable prices.  The BBQ, on the other hand, had limited selections and very high prices. 

I ended up getting the same thing I'd gotten a few days ago at Rose's - to compare.  A half-rack of ribs, baked beans, turnip greens.  This is what it looked like, which didn't seem nearly as appetizing as Rose's had looked.  And I paid $20 for this, which I thought was outrageous.  But I'd come for barbecue and there wasn't anything else on the whole menu I wanted, so I paid it. 

When I had it for supper later, I learned that the food was really good.  Though the greens were better at Rose's, this barbecue was better - spicier, I think.  And though it doesn't look like much, it turned out to be enough food for 2 meals.

Odd experience.

And then on to tonight's campground.  It took me a while to find, even though it's on a dead-end road that parallels the highway so there're businesses only on 1 side of the road.  But their sign was small, had peeling paint so was hard to read, and gave directions for where to go if you're starting from some unknown point - apparently it was intended to be a highway sign, but there was no chance it could even be seen, let alone read, from the parallel highway.  That was the only indication of where the campground was.

I found it when I'd driven to the end of the road, turned (with difficulty) and came back slowly looking at the mailboxes for the street number.  That's when I noticed the sign (which I'd missed before) and then noticed a few RVs hidden behind some bushes.

This is a small, unpaved campground with an office that's open only 1 hour a day.  I called their number and the person (who I learned later is the owner living in Michigan) said park in a vacant spot and meet the manager at 4:30.  Though that turned out to be wrong - the manager comes to the office at 5:00 on Wednesdays. 

It was hard to find a campsite that wasn't too muddy - I didn't want to let the dogs in and out into a mud puddle - and that looked level, but I found one that was more level than in the Clinton campground, so that was an improvement.

When I walked the dogs around, I discovered the campground is tiny.  I think there're only about 25 campsites, and half the campground seems to be slightly underwater.  Seriously.  I saw an old building, a fence and the dog park all standing in water that must have been 6" to a foot or more deep.  Not much campground and no dog park seriously limited our place to walk.  The redeeming feature: the site with water & electric hookups cost only $20.

Such an odd day.