The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

May 25 – It’s been quite a day! We left about 9:30 and had a full day planned. Our attempt

Stranded

to fuel up in Vicksburg failed as the station we could easily get in and out of was out of diesel. So we jumped on Hwy, 61 and headed north. When we drove through the Florida panhandle we saw the destruction of high winds. On our 88 mile drive to Leland, MS we saw the destruction of high water. The Mississippi Delta flooded in the last 2 weeks and we saw field after field flooded with lost crops and home after home surrounded by water. The road is built up higher and we just drove through and witnessed homes and businesses stranded in 4-5 feet or more of water. At one place we saw a pickup truck backed

down the driveway as far as he could go with a boat trailer and the boat was stopped at the house where he was trying to salvage what he could. It’s very sad to see.

 

Our first stop turned out to be great timing as there was the first “truck stop” we’d seen, so we filled up there in Leland and Bill talked with a guy who is a Caravan leader for Adventure Caravans. He told him about how they run the Alaska trips.

 

The reason we got off the road here is it the home of Jim Henson, therefore home of Kermit

I was wearing my frog shirt

and they have a nice little building along the creek filled with

Little video of Kermit

Kermit, Jim Henson and Muppet things and information. They have a DVD of Kermit singing his theme song, “Rainbow Connection” and it really brought back memories of my children, especially Kam, enjoying Kermit, the movies and The Muppets. They have so many toys, clothes, slippers, so much memorabilia, even light switch plates of the characters. Jim Henson went to school there until he was 12 I think, then his family moved. Along that creek was where he played and attributes his inspiration to create Kermit. It is a great story and Bill and I both thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Bill and the largest mound

While we were stopped we decided we may as well have our lunch there and then we pulled out and headed further north to Winterville Mounds in Greenville, MS. Bill had called for directions and to make sure there was a place to park with the RV towing. The guy told us parking should be no problem but his instructions were confusing and when we got there we pulled into the gated lot, oops! When we went in he knew we were the ones that called and said he’d deal with it when we were ready to leave. These are just one of thousands of mound groups in the US. The state

Some of the artifacts

maintains the site as an Archeological Park. There have been digs by major universities. American Indians constructed the mounds by carrying baskets of dirt to the site. Some of the mounds on this site were destroyed by local farmers who owned the land. The site has 11 mounds and 2 plazas. In the museum were displays of artifacts found during the various digs and they showed a short video. Mounds are traditionally found near waterways as a means for the people to travel. Some mound groups are believed to be ceremonial and others are dwellings. It was a very interesting site. The manager opened the gate for us so we didn’t have to unhook the truck and hook it back up. Phew!!

 

We got to see a crop dusting plane do his thing over fields on both sides of us. His plane was a bright yellow, you couldn’t miss it!

 

Yellow crop dusting plane

It was getting to be mid-afternoon and I like a little snack about this time, like an ice coffee or frappuccino. We passed a couple of McDonald’s but they weren’t advisable locations to park. Finally I spotted one on our side of the road next door to a shopping center that had a huge lot. BINGO! Bill went in and got him an iced coffee and a mocha frappuccino for the driver! Yum! It tided us over til we arrived at our site for the night. Actually, we had booked a spot at an Army Corps of Engineers location just east of Little Rock and received notice a few days ago that due to flooding they were cancelling our reservation. We took what we could get!

 

We arrived about 5 and once Bill waited his turn to check in he was told we didn’t have a

Crossing the Arkansas River

reservation. Bill insisted he spoke to a girl and she told him the site number. He said she didn’t write it down and that site had someone on it and all he had was pads with no hook ups. Then he said he could put us on one and provide a 50 amp cord and a hose and with ours added he could get us power and water. Thank goodness! The campground is part of a large city park and lots of trees and every other site is paved. It’s perfect for what we need!

 

Once set up, we took a break and I had a jack and ginger with a twist of lime and just relaxed a bit. I had taken chicken out for dinner and hadn’t really decided what to do with it. I ended up sautéing it with some sweet and sour sauce served it over mixed rice and steamed some zucchini and sprinkled it with some parmesan popcorn seasoning and Voila!

 

We were pleasantly surprised at how many TV stations we get on antenna since we can’t use our satellite under the trees. After TV time, Bill started reading and I started typing. Time to close up and read a few chapters myself. (no WIFI for sure here)