THE REST OF THE ROAD TRIP

A lot has happen since I last posted anything on my blog. Seems like May 1 was just a few days ago. That's not the case. It was over four months ago.

If you didn't notice yet, I have added two new links to my "Favorite Links." One is for the "USA National Volleyball Team" and the other one is about "New Orleans." I will tell you later why I added them. In the meantime enjoy my new favorites.

In April I took a road trip to Tallulah, Dallas, Houston, and New Orleans. That was the trip where I visited Caruthersville three days after it had been devastated by a tornado. I told you a little bit about my experiences in Caruthersville but have not told you about the rest of the road trip. It is never too late to finish weaving a story.

The remaining drive into Memphis on I-55 was fast in spite of lane closures for construction. I had considered taking US Hwy 61 through Tunica, Greenville and Greenwood, MS, down to Lake Village, AR and through Lake Providence to Tallulah. Driving through the small towns that time seems to have passed by can be fun sometimes, especially during the daylight hours. But at dusk you have be particularly watchful otherwise you could have a close encounter with a farm tractor, combine or car without lights. People living along the two lane highway are just not in a hurry to go anyplace fast; it's just us folks from up north.

Memphis to Tunica use to be dotted with old country stores, used car lots, cotton gins, grain elevators and other businesses that supported a farming community. Tunica now looks like an oasis sitting out in middle of nowhere, surrounded by corn and cotton fields. It is all swollen now with gambling casinos, hotels, restaurants and gas stations. Instead of supporting the farming community the new businesses along the highway now supports the gamblers. It looks like a scaled down rural version of Las Vegas, neon signs and all.

I wasn't sure I would have enough energy to drive all the way, so I stayed on I-55 just in case I needed to get a hotel room for the night. I tend to stay on interstate roads when I drive at night for that very reason. As it turned out, I spent the night in a little Mississippi town south of Como, MS. Grandma MaMoe was born in Como eons ago. After a good night sleep at the Holiday Inn Express and breakfast at Waffle House the remaining two hundred miles were a piece of cake.

The plan for Tallulah was for Kenny and I to catch as many as those big crappies or "perch" as the law would allow or as many as we could get in the boat, which ever came first. Get'em home, clean'em, get the grease in the skillet very hot, get'em in the hot grease, cook'em, eat'em and life would be good. But as luck would have it, things didn't turn out quite that way. We fished a couple of days at Fortune Fork but never got into the really big perch like everyone else were catching. We didn't have a boat and that limited us to where we fished. We made a trip to Wal-Mart in Vicksburg to buy a boat but they were sold out. Larry Cox, the Sheriff of Tallulah, gave us permission to fish one of his private ponds but it rained that day when Kenny was done with school. Our two day catch didn't produce enough fish for our "fry", but not to fret, Sheriff Cox to the rescue again. I was getting ready to supplement our dismal catch with a local fish market purchase when Bettye called and said that one of Larry's deputies had dropped off a package in her office for me. The package was fish, lots of fish, lots of big perch fish. I said to Kenny, "Life is good when you have perch to put in the hot grease." Kenny replied with an "Amen uncle, that what I'm talking about."