An Eye-Opening Drive through Mississippi

How can a state with the richest farm land in the world, in the richest country in the world, be so economically depressed?

I had driven through every state in the US except Hawaii, Mississippi, and Alabama. I drove a little bit of the gulf coast of Mississippi last fall, but that was it. Never really explored the state. We did it last week at the end of a roadtrip from Nashville to New Orleans and back. To avoid some nasty weather, we drove west and then north, and then east rather than driving northeast into the storm.

The eye-opening part was realizing exactly how depressed and downtrodden parts of our country are. After visiting the Windsor Ruins, we continued on into Port Gibson. This is where the eye-opening began. Port Gibson is a living ghost town. The buildings downtown are mostly deserted and decaying. Being overgrown by vines and shrubs and crumbling to the ground. This was once a proud little town, I suspect before the Civil War, but now, it’s being left behind. We bought gas at the local station and were approached (politely) for spare change in the parking lot. From here, it kept up. As we drove through rural Mississippi towns, we saw schools abandoned and overgrown. While the farm land we drove through is some of the richest in the world, downtown areas were derelict and deserted except for a tire store here and there. It was this way up to Memphis, where it continued right on up to Graceland.

It’s easy to think you know what poverty is, but even the hardest-hit towns in our state, Connecticut, are lightyears ahead of these towns in Mississippi. How did it get to be that way? In New England, when you outgrow a school, you don’t abandon it, you convert it into offices or housing, or you tear it down. Buildings don’t rot to the ground, at least not on the scale we saw in between Vicksburg, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee.

Quite a surprising drive.

Let the Weather Choose Travel Routes on Roadtrips

Sometimes its better to drive west in order to go east; you'll find beautiful weather, new sights, and new adventures.

Making our way back from New Orleans to Nashville, the sky turned gray and then black. Then the black clouds started swirling. Black swirling skies are a bad sign in the southeast, usually meaning tornadoes. Rather than drive northeast on the Natchez Trace, and along the storm path, we drove west over the Mississippi River into Louisiana, headed north into Arkansas, jumped back over the river into Mississippi, and then straight north to Memphis.

This turned out to be fast, scenic, a new adventure, and an eye-opening drive (but that's a different blog topic altogether). We’d never driven through Mississippi before, just a short drive along the gulf coast after Katrina. The road we took, mostly state Highway 1 North along the river was a two lane road in great shape. There was very little traffic, mostly semis, but it wasn’t congested at all.

The scenery was beautiful, driving up through the rich farmlands of the Mississippi River floodplain. The crops were mostly corn, but a few of the fields had golden wheat growing which was beautiful in the sunlight. The rain from the night before left standing water in many of the fields, which made lessons for Tom about floodplains and farming more relevant.

We didn't want to abandon the Trace
While we really enjoyed the Natchez Trace Parkway, and were actually sad to get off of it in favor or “regular” roads, this rural route provided a pathway to Memphis which helped to wrap up a few loose ends of our educational journey with the kids. Because our destination was New Orleans, the Mississippi River played a big part in how we framed some lessons for Tom. But the Natchez Trace doesn’t follow the river, it begins there. And it exists because of the river. Driving along the river allowed us to a see the farmlands we’d talked about and the shape of the river, and its floodplain. It also allowed us to follow Elvis from his home in Tupelo (which we visited on the Trace) to his home in Memphis and Sun Recoding studio, where Johnny Cash and Elvis recorded.

Eat Lunch Here -- French Camp on the aNatchez Trace

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The Bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich is America's sandwich.
Probably the best version of the BLT is along the Natchez Trace Parkway -- it comes as a triple-decker with home made garlic Tabasco mayo.

French Camp on the Natchez Trace Parkway, mile 180.7, Mississippi.

Natchez Trace Parkway: Drive This Road, part 2

I'm kind of a pushover. I love almost any good road I'm driving on. The Anaconda-Pintler Scenic Route in western Montana is a fantastic road, the Road through Smoky Mountain National Park is a great road, but the Natchez Trace Parkway is really a great road. I don't think I say that because I'm smitten. I think it's the truth. Tinsley will back me up on it. She keeps finding reasons to love it too.

Maybe it's just that the kids were behaving exceptionally well (see Tips forRoadtripping with Kids tip #1 Start 'em Early and Often). They're either totally beaten down and resigned to the fact thet they're going to spend 50% of their lives in the back seat, or they like it. These days, it seems like they like it.

The first 50 - 100 miles are a little windy, but after that, it's nothing but gentle curves, gradual inclines, nice road surface, ZERO LITTER... This would make a fantastic bike ride.

We worked up some stuff for Tom to study before we left because we're pulling him from school to do this. One of the things is a two page map spread of the road and the Mississippi river. I added a bunch of text about the river -- how it works, what grows in and around it, why shrimp in New Orleans are jumbo and consequently, what an oxymoron is (I'll post that stuff soon). Tinsley laid out the page and made my words fit. At the Mississippi Arts Center, she picked up a copy of Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi. Within the first three pages, he verified all of the things that I had written and she acted so amazed. I guess she thinks I have an active imagination.

Anyway, here's a good tip: If you're driving the Trace (or exploring anywhere in Mississippi River country, buy and read Twain's book before you go (during the trip is OK, but not quite as good). Twain is such a wonderful describer of things and people that it really helps to make the trip fun and interesting for parents and kids alike.

Here's another tip: keep a running tab of animals that you see. We saw tons of turkeys (literally). Which maybe isn't such a surprise. But we also saw a lot of other animals too. Guess which is the strangest animal we saw.

Here's a hint: we saw it in Alabama.
OK, here's another hint: It's not native to Alabama.
Give up?

C'mon, don't give up, it's native to some other continent and it begins with a "C"
Guess what it is.


Nope, guess again.

OK, I'll tell you. It was a camel.

We saw a camel in Alabama.

So when we saw the Zebra, it was a little less surprising. The Zebra may have been more surprising, had we seen it first, but after seeing a camel in Alabama, how could you b e surprised by a striped horse?

We spent the night in Tupelo, Mississippi after visiting Elvis's birthplace and driving by the Tupelo National Battlefield (which is right next to the side of the highway and can be photographed from the car at a stop sign. Probably not worth too much effort, but Tupelo is a great little city, the Hilton Garden Inn is a wonderful place to stay, and the Starbuck's in Tupelo was great (this was where I bought the great country cd).