Yes the Oddasee continues. We just got into that Louisiana mode and slowed down a bit. A couple of days by the side of a lake was a good thing after having been in the fast lanes of Houston and New Orleans for those many days. While our trek inevitably takes us to multi-tiered highway interchanges and into the chaos of big city traffic, we far prefer the backroads, small towns and "out of the way" explorations.
There are many recurring themes along the way. The most obvious is that many of our desired points of odd interest have been consumed by time and/or financial realities. We also have had to adjust to the fact that the classic and somewhat quirky roadside Route 66-style motels and diners have all but disappeared. There are more than a few sure signs that a small town has morphed away from it's unique character. These evil dominatrix are Walmart, Subway, Edward Jones, Dollar General/Family Dollar and the seemingly endless casinos; all are town killers. More on that rant another time.
So here's a brief (yeah sure as I ramble on and on ad nauseum) synopsis of our last 3 days.
Days 25 & 26 (Thursday/Friday, May 13/14) - We headed off along the coast on Hwy 90 outside of New Orleans toward Mississippi. Along the way we stumbled upon a pull off point of interest, Fort Pike. It was named in honor of Zebulon Pike (yes you Colorado-philes that very Pike's Peak explorer, Zeb the man). It was serene and kind of spooky. We both wondered what it took to have been in the military and find oneself stationed in this rather bleak and isolated spot in 1820s-60s.
Later we sought out the "Japanese Garden" in Pass Christian, LA. This was targeted by a website for being a worthy side trip. Well as we have found, current info is not always forthcoming -- this once impressive mecca was destroyed by hurricane Camille in 1969. The site is a long rummaged over pile of shards and remnants from it glory days. This sent Susan in a bit of pack-rat frenzy of making piles of curious "objects-to-go". Fortunately she was able to let go of taking the stone corbels and concrete pedestals and settled for an old pans worth of curious bits and pieces...... "ooh shiny!".
Oh yeah we found this weird and now defunct drive-in theatre, "The Beverly". Typically odd derelict of days gone by but this one had the added twist of having a house as the base of the screen. "Okay, here's the plan: We'll have a drive-in theater and live below the screen. It will be great, trust me. The kids will love it." The door was open and we got to snoop around in the bizarro world of bad carpet and yucky stuff on the floor.... ewww!
We arrived in the Paul B. Johnson campground outside of Hattiesburg about 6:00 pm. This place was beautiful and pristine. It is state-owned and unbelievably well maintained. We were mostly surrounded by rolling condo RVs but it was all very pleasant. Mostly we hiked around, read books, napped and played a round of disc golf (water on every friggin hole). Not in full camping mode, we ate a few too many sandwiches and served as a walking feasts for various insects -- actually much less a factor than in Colorado or New Mexico. Nothing quite like getting out into the great outdoors and feeling so natural and then spraying toxic plutonium-based waste on one's body to keep the West Nile and Lyme at bay.... gack!
Day 27 (Saturday, May 15) -- proved to be quite the day. It started with a quest to find "Mammy's Cupboard" north of town. Alas it was closed and we did not get any BBQ at this politically incorrect building. Damn -- our first frustration of the day.
One of our main destinations was a ghost town called "Rodney". Yep my namesake. Well this was an incredible journey but for all the wrong reasons. A GPS that has way out of date, a bad map, road construction detours, new roads, bad info from a local policeman, bad info from a guard at Alcorn University, and a complete lack of signage led the recently rejuvenated campers Susan and Rodney to become Lucretia Borgia and Idi Amin...... we wanted to kill; have veins, gore, guts in our teeth, eat dead burnt bodies, we wanted to KILL (fortunately, not each other)! And all for naught; we never did find the place. It's such a ghost town, it's invisible. We finally gave up after walking down a road/path next to a hunting camp at late dusk -- Hey did you hear that? I think I heard someone say "Boy, can you squeal like a pig?" and banjo music. Damn! Where's my bow and arrow! We failed on this quest.
However, once again, we did find some incredible places. One was Emerald Mound; the second largest Mississippian Culture ceremonial mound in the county. It is 8 acres and a verdant wonder looming above the mostly flat terrain. Susan, the history buff, loved this find. It was impressive.
Then there was the ruins of the Windsor Mansion. Wow! Like visiting some ancient Greek site. Beautiful, haunting and ethereal in the wet dusk. In it's present state it is spooky and yet glorious. It almost compelled us to whisper as we pondered what it must have looked like long ago. It was spared destruction during the Civil War only to burn to the ground in 1890. Awesome, really is an apt description. The photos below do not do this place justice.
After our futile Rodney-ville quest we drove to Vicksburg, MS in a deluge.......
That sums up the last few days. We appreciate how many of you contacted us wondering if we had literally fallen of the map. Seems many of you are becoming addicted to our daily emails and pics. We are very excited with what each day may bring; even if it means getting lost repeatedly on a futile search for some non-existent stinkin' little town that only caught our eye because of it sharing a moniker with one of the Oddaseers -- hope finding "Palmer" proves easier.
Love with a lack of signage,
Susan and Rodney
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