That single little county had been glaring
at me, taunting me, ever since I discovered I had missed it on
the Alabama County Safari of March '96. Finally I could take the
abuse no longer, and I plotted a course for Greene County and
points west and south, for the middle of Xgiving weekend, 1998.
I could not afford a long trip, and wanted to
save my vacation days anyway. Reasonable tickets to Nashville
were easy to come by for Thanksgiving day, but the return Sunday
was already out, and Saturday was already iffy 5 weeks in
advance. I managed to work out a plan which would give me exactly
48 hours' driving time, minus stops for gas and perhaps food and
lodging.
Plan A had been to also make an attempt at all
the Mississippi counties I still needed. While theoretically
possible, I was not sure what the back-roads would be like,
especially in the crucial southern third of the state. It had
also been months since my last long-haul drive, and being late
November the weather was too questionable to plan for much in
advance...except for my first drive in Mississippi, in June of
1990, every visit there was met with some form of nasty weather,
including my deepest snow of the 1991-92 winter season. It did
not help my mind-set to read the book Mississippi, by
Chicago-area writer Anthony Walton, a history of the state told
from the perspective of his sharecropping relatives living and
from there. So, I pretty much had myself psyched for just doing
my best to fill in all the holes in northern MS, and to try to at
least nip two or three other states to build up my disgustingly
low 1998 state-count.
Thursday would be just fine...60 and sunny in
Chicago, no traffic near O'Hare airport, on-time takeoff, and
early landing at Nashville. Got my rental right away and headed
straight for Alabama on I-65. I had targeted the Athens-Decatur
area for some sort of dinner, most likely at a Waffle House, to
also get a good tape of ez-listening WRSA while I was eating.
That station was still doing the ez thing, and there was a Waffle
House at the Athens exit, so I got off there, only to also spot a
Shoney's, and with an Xgiving Buffet. They had turkey AND ham on
the buffet, the latter cooked with raisins and apples, yum.
On most of these long-haul trips, if I have a
big meal it's either lunch, an early dinner while still daylight,
or I'm already near my overnight destination. Still had a long
drive ahead of me, having the fight off the post-dinner sleepies
much of the way. Got back on I-65, turned right at I-20/59, past
all the maquilladora-type factories around Tuscaloosa, and on
'till I reached Greene county. Oh well, perhaps I'll get back
down there some year for a daytime county-line photo? Stayed on
the interstate until mid-county, then turned northwest to take a
few 2-laners up to Columbus, MS for a much-needed zonk-off. This
at what appeared to be a freshly-remodelled Motel 6, just off
US-45. Hmmm, when my wanderlust illness flares up, I look at
routes I'm on or near and think things like, "I oughta just
stay on I-80 until Boston, or go back the other way until I reach
San Francisco!" US-45 goes right through downtown Des
Plaines.
Early Friday morning, I stopped ever so
briefly at the Columbus tourist propaganda office, which doubles
as Tennessee Williams' first home. The official state highway map
would prove much more useful than the AAA or Rand McNallys I
had...the latter two would show roads which may or may not have
existed, as they would not be numbered or signed in any way. The
map from the state, if it looked simpler, also did not
disappoint. Anyway, from there I drove north and then west to
I-55 at Grenada, and south to my planned luch stop in
Jackson...by way of a rare Stuckey's to pick up Xmas stocking
stuffing stuff for the family.
I had been hearing some good talk about CiCi's
pizza buffets, but oddly enough I had never heard even one peep
about them until a few days after I was last anywhere near one.
One would be delusional to be expecting great pizza at $2.99,
especially all-you-can-eat, but hey it was not bad. Plus there
were a couple unusual pizzas out...I suppose one could find a ham
and pineapple pizza in a true Pizza Town like Chicago, but those
are a lot more common where they don't know any better, like say
Toronto or Vancouver. And I found another I have seen no where
else to date, BBQ beef! The dessert "pizzas" were
actually excellent, especially the thin-crust apple and the
deep-dish chocolate-caramel. For the second straight day, a big
buffet would be my only real meal. I really noticed how warm it
was when I got back outside...mid-to-upper 70s, and the sun felt
like August intensity.
Headed west on I-20, a road too rough to do
the 70mph limit. The paving LOOKED flat, but the
thumpa-thumpa-thumpa was rhythmic and constant enough where I had
to cut my speed to 60-65, much as I was in a hurry to get to
Vicksburg and be done with it. Well, really first I stayed on
I-20 until it crossed the Mississippi river so I could claim a
new Louisiana parish. I had been to 48 states since I last poked
my nose in this state, and my parish (equivalent of county) count
there is still pathetic! U'ied at the first available exit and
doubled back to Vicksburg, more to find a post office at which to
mail a couple tape-letter packages than anything else. I could be
persuaded to eventually come back to visit the military park, but
the mess of plantation homes in the surrounding area alas bring
out the civil rights advocate in me, aaaaargh!
North on US-61 is a pretty fast track. While
it's not as flat as one is led to believe, until after crossing
the Yazoo river anyway, it does let you zip along at 65mph quite
a ways up. Even with a couple side-trips to pick off stray
counties, I made good time up to Greenville. Where I again
crossed the mighty Mississippi, this time in heavy traffic on the
narrow US-82 bridge, all to collect a new Arkansas county. More
traffic into and out of Greenville, until relief came around
Leland, where the "Birthplace of the Frog" commemorates
where Jim Hensen grew up. Took US-49W and Highway 3 north for a
couple more counties, up to the town of Marks (easy to remember
that name, ha). Hwy. 3 up that way is Charley Pride Drive. All
this is near Clarksdale, but it was too late to check out the
blues museum. Yep, yet another thing to save for another time. I
headed east to I-55, intending to take it up to Memphis. However,
the road was as bad as the I-20 stretch I noted earlier! When
traffic allowed, I studied the maps and books for a Plan B,
winding up instead with Hwy. 4 east the Hwy 7.
Despite many curves and hills, Hwy. 4 was an
amazingly pleasant drive. Probably thanks to lack of
traffic...Hwy 7 north from Holly Springs was straighter and
flatter, but also more heavily used especially by the chronically
impatient. 7 became 18 when it entered Tennessee, and I even got
a new county out of this! As Memphis was too out of the way for
staying overnight, I checked the books and found a couple
possible motels in Bolivar. Which thanks to Cruise Night were
hard to find. Double pisser being when I did find them, neither
made their "No Vacancy" signs easy to spot!!
Must be a regional Stupid Quirk, as I ran into
the same trouble up to road in Jackson. Either the "no"
would be a small piece of paper invisible more than a foot away,
or you had to get the word live from the night manager. The Days
Inn on the US-45 Bypass (no getting away from 45!) has a big,
flashy sign plugging low room rates...wonder what they charge
when they have rooms? Fortunately, amongst all the chain signs in
that stretch, I spotted a "vacancy" sign at a no-name
place across the street. Double-amazing, the price posted outside
was the same as what they charged me! And as tired as I was, the
full cable service was an amusing distraction...it included
multi-channel HBO and Showtime, though as usual there was too
much boxing and silicone-enhanced T&A, yawn.
If the radio in Jackson was a step or two
below Memphis, this did put me closer enough to Nashville to make
possible a semi-elaborate side-trek into Kentucky on the way to
the airport Saturday. Passed through Paris, TN, where a big gas
war had most of the stations down to 79.9! The champ, however,
would be the dueling truck stops on I-24 somewhere around Cadiz,
77.9.
Murray, Kentucky I only knew about from tape
trades a dozen years ago. A contact in southern Illinois could,
when the wind was blowing the right direction, pick up some fine
programs on Murray State U. station WKMS. It was still good for
my first live hearing, with a nice bluegrass/folk show going as I
pulled into town. A billboard on the way in was touting a local
Italian restaurant which sounded worthy, but the only directions
were "6th light, turn right". Traffic got a bit heavy
nearing downtown, so I lost count of lights, drats. A couple
blocks north of the main intersection, I saw a southern
rarity...a direction sign to the post office! I had a letter to
mail, so what the heck. Fate was on my side, as Pagliai's (or
however it is spelled) was just down the street, huzzah! Turned
out to be pizza buffet for lunch, though they also had some good
pasta and a more elaborate salad bar, so was still a good meal.
To get from Murray to I-24 meant driving
through Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. One of
those massive Depression-era Tennessee Valley Authority projects
involved plugging up both the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers
just before they could escape into the Ohio river, and the land
between the two resultant lakes was turned into a scenic park.
Like I needed one more thing to come back to see at a more
leisurely pace?
Got back into Nashville with a little time to spare, so I
tracked down a Krystal near the airport for a quick snack and to
catch some 4pm station IDs. Krystal, as I've noted in past
southeast travel essays, is that region's answer to White Castle,
and the small square burgers pack just as much burp action.
Krystal, however, also still has the tiny "Pup" hot
dogs, also available as chili dogs and as corn dogs.
The return flight was closer to what one would
expect on a heavy travel weekend...crowded gates, full flights,
mobs of families seemingly not used to flying as a group, etc.
New Counties
Alabama, 1 (for 67 of 67...completed!);
Arkansas, 1 (for 37 of 75); Kentucky, 5 (for 55 of 120);
Louisiana, 1 (for 18 of 64); Mississippi, 15 (for 55 of 82);
Tennessee, 5 (for 70 of 95). Total, 28 (for 2,200 of 3,134).
Favorite stations
WKMS, Murray KY and WSGI,
Springfield TN (live in-studio country show).
Honorable Mention to "PRM" (Public Radio Mississippi?) network, whose offerings included the BBC Radio word-play program My Word, which has been running for years on Chicago station WFMT. Typically, guests take turns telling a story, which ends in a take-off on a famous phrase. Alas, the only example I have handy is a very brief one I made up myself whilst doing laundry the other evening....
"A lady-friend had years ago received a fancy party dress, but had worn it so often since then, she felt it was OK to just toss it into the washer and dryer to clean. During one such evening washing, she forgot to remove a 10-cent piece from a hidden pocket, and also kept the dress in the dryer a bit too long. When finally removing the dress, her hand touched the metal coin, causing her to let out a shriek, and then exclaimed, 'There's a hot dime in the old gown tonight!'" Trust me, the show is better.
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