Day 14 (28 May). Mississippi & Louisiana

From: near Forest, MS

To: El Dorado, AR

Miles today: 353

Total miles: 3354

Two weeks on the road now.

Yesterday I drove through Meridian, Mississippi, on my way to the Jackson area.  I hate to say this, but the nicest part of Meridian I saw was the part near the Interstate, where the fast food restaurants and chain motels were.  On the other hand, I drove by TWO women’s clinics. One more impression: the police cars are painted an intimidating glossy black (at least I found them intimidating), and they have the phrase “For God and Country” written on the side.    

I drove into Jackson this morning via I-20, because I found the smaller roads were “not well maintained.”  Actually, even the Interstate was full of “speed bumps” and pot holes; doesn’t the money to maintain these come from the Feds?  I don’t understand.  Anyway, I drove through downtown and took some shots of the government buildings (this is the Mississippi State Capitol).  The Capitol building itself was having its dome redone, so here is a photo of the Mississippi Supreme Court building. Justice with a capital J!

Left: Mississippi State Supreme Court Building.  Right: Seven Flags Over Mississippi.

I then drove to the north end of town to see the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.  It was in a big park area, and I drove through a pretty nice neighborhood to get there, and still there were sawhorses over major potholes that had clearly been there for some time.  Mississippi, what is the deal with your roads?

The museum itself was fairly large, and I thought the limited number of exhibits that they had were quite good.  They had a great exhibit on dogs and their evolution.  Way in the back they had a display on Darwin that actually says the following about “Origin of Species”: “What troubled people at the time [1859, when the book was published] was not so much that a species could change, but that natural selection – rather than the Victorian notion of a creator – was the guiding force.”  This is a subtle but important point that is well-stated, in my view.  (Of course it was not just dead Victorians who are troubled by this point.)  Here is a photo of this exhibit, along with a photo of the official fossil of Mississippi (an early whale – very cool!)  What is interesting about this is that at some point the Mississippi State Government had to approve of a fossil.

Sub-exhibit on Darwin in the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science

Zygorhiza, The Offical State Fossil of Mississippi.

From Jackson I drove down the southern quarter or so – 90 miles – of the famous Natchez Trace, or rather a nearby road called the Nachez Trace Parkway.  (The Natchez Trace, for some reason not called the Natchez Trail, apparently goes back thousands of years.  In the early days of America, it was one of our few “National Roads.”  It runs about 450 miles between present-day Natchez, Mississippi and Nashville, Tennessee.  It was very nice riding – the first well-maintained road I experienced in Mississippi. I had it almost all to myself the whole way. I did see a handful of motorcyclists and a similar number of bicyclists going the other way.  It had fairly heavy woods on all sides, so “views” were rare.  When I turned off the cycle on a break, I could hear all sorts of birds and other wildlife.

I entered the town of Natchez, which is located on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. Because of the importance of the river and the immunity of the elevated area from flooding, this site has apparently been continuously occupied for thousands of years.  There are a number of antebellum mansions in the area, none of which were destroyed in the Civil War, and there is legalized gaming/gambling on some permanently-moored river boats.  I ate lunch there.

From Natchez I took US 425 over the Mississippi and into Louisiana.  US 425, which is divided four-lane, turns north.  I took it as far as the town of Gilbert, where I veered off into local roads.  (LA 128 & 4 west, then LA 133 north, then LA 15 northwest.)  These roads were fantastic riding, some of the best so far.  The Louisiana landscape seems to be a bit more “open” than Mississippi.  Some of this is due to a greater percentage of land under cultivation (farms), but some of it could be the soil and water table, which seems to be a lot closer to the surface.  Below are roadside snapshots from Mississippi and Louisiana, for comparison.

View from small roads in Mississippi (left; Natchez Trace Parkway), and Louisiana (right, LA 133)

There wasn’t much in Monroe for me to see.  I checked the weather and it seemed clear at the moment.  I was enjoying riding these back roads so much I didn’t want to stop!  So I pressed on for Arkansas on LA 143 and 2.

About half an hour later it became apparent that the afternoon thunderstorms that just “pop up” in these parts were on top of me with a vengeance.  I pulled over into a gas station & garage parking lot in the small city of Farmerville to don my rain gear.  The guys who worked there told me I was crazy and that I should hunker down with them instead.  I took them up on it, and had a great time with them while the storm blew through.  Thanks guys!

Friends In Need in Farmerville, Louisiana

Things went smoothly after that, and 45 minutes later I arrived in El Dorado, Arkansas, where I am now.  I have now moved far enough west so that the weather channel is on all the time around here. There have been storms pounding Texas and Oklahoma for weeks now, leading to severe flooding, and I am probably going to be skirting the edges of these storms for the next several days.  Lots of early morning riding for the foreseeable future.