Northern Mississippi & Memphis, TN - Summer 2007

FRIDAY
Our journey began about 9am after we got Katie off to school. After a brief stop in Shawnee to take care of some banking and a quick pit stop at Sonic, we were off for the big town of Hernando, MS.

We drove through Arkansas, which I hadn’t realized was as hilly as it was, I guess because I’d never really been into the interior of the state up to this point.

We arrived at our destination/headquarters, Meadow View Farm, around 5:30pm and met our hosts and dropped off our luggage and headed out for some dinner at one of the local establishments.

First stop on our dining list was Uncle Chuck’s Good Eats in nearby Lewisburg. It was one of those hole-in-the-wall places that you’d probably pass up had it not been recommended. It was a converted ranch style house and the décor was primarily dead animals and fishing gear. The food was quite good. I had a “Cowboy Steak” with French fries and fried okra. The steak was a gigantic pork cut with a spicy Cajun rub, and when I say gigantic, I mean it…the thing was about the size a Frisbee and pushing 1/2” thick; that said, it was really good. Bonnie had the small catfish plate, which looked good for those that get into the whole eating fish thing and I just took her word for it that it was good.

SATURDAY
This day was what would be deemed our yearly pilgrimage to the hottest place we could find to hike. After a good breakfast at the bed and breakfast (coincidence, I think not…), we headed over to Holly Springs, MS to visit the Strawberry Plains Audobon Center. We got there around 10:30 that morning and started off our visit with a tour of the historic mansion there.

The previous owner did a fair amount of work to restore the home which was that of her ancestors and upon her death she willed the home and the extensive property surrounding it to the Audobon Society. 

The mansion was surrounded by a beautiful garden and rows of very large trees.

After a tour of the house, we set out on the trail for our yearly exercise in “mobile baking”. We hiked and hiked following the black and white map which was copied from a color map, rendering the color coding of the trails completely useless and setting the stage for what would be a rather hot and frustratig hike. Our intent was to find a bird blind on a pond and look for kingfishers (Bonnie’s favorite bird) and herons, but it was not to be. After about 15 minutes of walking it became quite apparent that the trails were not marked and it was going to be a challenge. Long story short we got lost. In looking at the map I could see that each of the trails eventually looped on itself, so it was decided that we would just keep picking the left fork and eventually we would get back to where we started. It was ridiculously hot and our water supply depleted pretty quick. Any spot with shade became a pit stop and at one point we stopped for a good 15 minutes and rested and I also marked the trail with an arrow made of sticks so that if we passed by there again we’d know we were just walking in circles, or if someone came looking for us then they would know what direction we went. Anyhow we got seriously exhausted, dehydrated, you name it…if it was something bad that could happen because of the heat then we were well on our way to experiencing it. We eventually got back after numerous calls to the center’s office and labored step after labored step. When we got back we found they had turned on the sprinklers to water the grounds and get them prettied up for the upcoming hummingbird festival in a couple of weeks. We just plopped down under the sprinklers and sat until we were completely soaked. After about 20 minutes or so of sitting in the sprinkler one of the women that worked there (maybe the director, we never really figured out what her position was, but it was obvious that she lived on the grounds there) found us sitting under the sprinklers and asked if we were ok. She felt really bad about our experience and told us she has been telling them, whoever them is, that they need to mark those trails, and felt bad that we’d gotten lost in the heat. She offered us cokes, hot dogs, a shower, and air conditioning. Neither of us were really feeling like sticking around much longer, but then she persuaded us to go back to the mansion and she would get us some t-shirts. She proceeded to pull out a couple of big boxes of shirts and by the time it was all said and done she had hooked us up with a couple of t-shirts for their hummingbird festival and 3 ball caps along with a tall glass of cold water. We sat in the back parlor area of the house and chatted with her along with another visitor to the center and watched the swarm of hummingbirds in the garden out back. I don’t think I’d be off to say that you could look out at any given time and count over 20 hummingbirds there at the feeders at any given time. That was pretty neat to watch and after we’d cooled off good and the thunderstorm rolled through we felt better and finally left and headed back over to the bed and breakfast. We decided since I was feeling whipped from the heat that we wouldn’t venture too far from home and would just try another local eatery for dinner and just hang around our room. The heat seriously did a number on me, since my water got so warm that it was like drinking hot chocolate sans the chocolate it was not too appealing to me, so I got rather dehydrated I’m sure, plus I couldn’t find my hat before we left home and went without which I’m sure only served to further my problems. Anyhow, we ate at a place called The Chatterbox in Ingram's Mill for dinner…the food was ok, the dessert wasn’t bad, but I was still feeling so sick from being out in the heat that I really couldn’t enjoy it much. Oh well.

SUNDAY
We got up, had another good breakfast and then headed out for worship services with the Hernando church of Christ. We found the congregation there to be super friendly, kind of like a mini Choctaw congregation, it was really refreshing to go somewhere where the phrase “you are our welcomed guest” actually meant something. We had one member that gave us his wife’s phone number and told us that if we needed anything while we were in town to just call them and let them know, that really made an impression on me. We will definitely be worshipping there again when we are in the area. After services we had lunch at what I would have to say was the best place we ate in Hernando, Old Venice Pizza Co (which I have found out since has been closed). We had a pizza and some spinach/artichoke dip, both of which were really really good. The pizza I would say was on the level of what you would get at Hideaway and the spinach/artichoke dip was some of the best I’ve had in recent memory. They also gave us a loaf of homemade bread that was quite good as well.

After lunch we were off for the Tunica River Park. We had hoped to catch a boat ride down “The Mighty Mississip”, but that wasn’t to happen.

We didn’t have the greatest map of the area and so we took the scenic route that wound us out quite a long ways from our intended destination, but we did eventually make it there…right as the last boat was pulling away from the dock. We went ahead and toured the river museum that was there. 

After that, we walked around part of the trail there and watched some of the birds around there. 

Bonnie saw her first red-headed woodpecker, so birding wise it was a decent trip.

After we’d seen about all there was to see there it was decided we’d go check out Memphis and see what there was to see on Beale St. After an unintended trip through the ghetto section of Memphis (scary scary) which had to have been where Elvis got the inspiration for “In The Ghetto”, we got to Beale St and found a place to park across the street from the Gibson Guitar Factory and headed over to Beale St. We walked over and just decided to make a right which took us to the Hard Rock Café where we ended up having dinner. Food was decent. We stopped in the shop and got the mandatory T-shirts and then left and immediately noticed what Bonnie and I decided was the most horrendous stench ever…imagine if you will going to the state fair on the last Friday night of the fair after it has been really really hot during the day, going over to the food and beer tents, finding a big dumpster and putting your head in it and breathing deeply over and over through your nose...that’s all I can equate it to. It smelled horrible around there and we had all we could take of it, so we headed back towards the ponderosa, but decided to stop at Velvet Cream, a little ice cream stand in Hernando that we’d passed on the way to worship that morning and indulged in a pink gorilla shake (Bonnie) and a Shrek shake (me).

MONDAY
We got up, had another wonderful breakfast and headed to the Memphis Botanical Gardens. 

We toured the gardens there, which were quite nice despite the fact that they’ve been in a drought and some of the prettier varieties of flowers weren’t in bloom.

They had an awesome Japanese garden there which we spent a fair amount of time in. 

 

I’d really like to go back in the spring when things are actually blooming, I’m sure the whole garden would be even more beautiful. After a tour of the gardens there we headed off for an unintended trip to Germantown, TN…we got bad directions and followed them for a good long while before it dawned on us that something wasn’t quite right.

Anyhow, we got turned around and made it to the Memphis Zoo around lunch time. 

Our first stop was “Cat Country” where we stood and watched the tigers playing in the water. 

We then toured the Tropical Bird House, looked at the penguins and walked around checking out the animals.

We made our way over to the Giant Panda exhibit which was just awesome, it was like stepping off into Chinatown or something.

All the buildings and surroundings took on a Chinese flair and really worked well with the large variety of animals in the area which were all supposed to be natives of China. 

We saw the pandas there and then walked on through more of the zoo, stopping next at an area called “The Northwest Passage” where we sat for a long while and watched one of the resident polar bears swimming laps in his pool. 

They had some great exhibits there, but I’ve just decided that no matter where the zoo and what is there, each zoo will have at least one exhibit that is better than any other zoo. In this instance the pandas took the prize, their area was great. After our trip to the zoo we just decided to try to find one of the restaurants that were on the list of ones that I’d found before we left. The first one that we came to turned out to be a great selection…The Beauty Shop. The décor was what I’d describe as being retro-modern and featured table seating that had the big old hair dryer chairs complete with the big drying “domes” and the booth seating was divided by large glass blocks and made for cozy private dining. The food was a bit on the pricier end of things ($23 was the cheapest entrée they had), but it was sooooooo good. I had Steak Fritte Au Poivre, which is essentially a fancy way of saying an amazing steak and French fries with a really unique taste that makes me wish I knew how they were seasoned because they were quite tasty too. The portions were just right and we didn’t go away stuffed like we had in previous meals. We then headed back to Hernando, MS and decided to have dessert at Old Venice Pizza Co. where we split a tiramisu and a piece of turtle cheesecake. Good stuff again.

TUESDAY
We showered up, packed up, ate up and headed out. I decided I didn’t want to drive I-40 again as it was quite boring no matter how you looked at it, so we opted for the slightly slower scenic off interstate route. This took us through some small towns, but the winding roads and varying speed limits kept me on my toes and made for an interesting drive back. We found that the route took us through Searcy, AR and it was decided that we should call our friends Rachel and Leslie and make a lunch stop at Harding University and pay them a visit. We had lunch at a local place there, took a quick campus tour and had some ice cream in the student union (though I’m sure Rachel has some abbreviated thing to call it). After finishing up our visit there we headed out and wound through some more small towns before finally getting on 40 somewhere near the Arkansas/Oklahoma border and getting on home Tuesday night around 10:45pm.