Mount Locust Inn and Plantation, Mississippi

Corn snake near Mount Locust Inn and Plantation, MS: Click to enlarge.

Continuing north on the Natchez Trace Parkway, I almost ran over a corn snake warming himself on the road.  I stopped, picked him up, and moved him onto the shoulder.  This was the only snake I saw throughout this trip to the southern states.  He tamed very quickly.

Mount Locust was established as a farm in the late 1770’s and by 1784 grew to be a larger plantation.  The house, with no more than 1600 square feet of floor space, served as an inn for the Mississippi River boatmen walking north from Natchez, MS.  These “Kaintucks” were charged $0.25 per day, meals included.  After 1825 the advent of steamboats and more efficient roads rendered the Trace obsolete for business travelers.  At that point the inn continued to operate as a resort for locals seeking rural solitude.  It was interesting to learn that such rural escapes were in demand even in 1825, when it’s hard to imagine any real cities in existence.  Paulina Chamberlain, the lady of the house from 1784 to 1849, was known as a hard charger who kept the farm and inn running through two husbands who predeceased her.  This was especially noteworthy given women’s typical roles at the time.  Known as “Grandma Polly,” she raised 11 children while operating the plantation.

A few hundred yards behind the inn, at one end of the agricultural field, there are two cemeteries.  The Mount Locust family is buried in the first, with waist-high headstones bearing easily read inscriptions.  The graves are adorned with fresh-looking Confederate flags.  One memorable headstone listed the deceased as a member of the “Jefferson Flying Artillery.”

A few feet away lay the slave cemetery, where over 40 slaves are known to be buried.  Most of the slaves’ identities, however, are uncertain.  The slaves’ graves are marked simply with fist-sized rocks bearing no inscriptions.  This was a sad place.

Historical information on the Mount Locust Inn and Plantation was provided by the National Park Service.

Natchez Trace Parkway, Mississippi

Natchez Trace Parkway, southern entrance. Click to enlarge.

The Natchez Trace Parkway is a two-lane highway that runs for 444 miles from southern Mississippi to Northern Tennessee, crossing through Alabama.  The hiking trails and historic sites along the way are managed by the National Park Service as a national park, though the Parkway is not officially listed as such.  Locals refer to the highway simply as “The Trace.”

The parkway closely follows The Old Trace, a foot and horse trail used as a primary trade route in the 1700’s and 1800’s.  Merchants would sail their goods down the Mississippi river from the north to Natchez, MS on unpowered rafts.  Since these rafts could not travel back upriver, they were sold for scrap and the boatmen walked home on the Trace.  Inns and taverns served the travelers along the way.  Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians were a prominent presence during much of the Trace’s heyday.

Natchez Trace Parkway, southern entrance. Click to enlarge.

I entered the Trace at its southern end in Natchez shortly before sunset. The dense, towering deciduous trees were a contrast to the bayous I left behind earlier that day.  There was just enough daylight to explore Emerald Mound, a raised terrace of dirt roughly 300 feet tall with a flat rectangular mesa the size of 2-3 footballs fields on top.  A steep, fenced trail led from the parking lot to the top of the mound.  Dense, green, and neatly mowed grass covered the top and sides.  The mound was built by ancient Indians who hauled the dirt one basket at a time on their backs.  The Indians used this site for governing and religious activities according to the National Park Service.

Duly impressed, I headed for Natchez State Park to camp for the night.  I set up next to a friendly married couple from Maryland.  They were traveling to Texas to visit their son in college.  The next morning I was setting up my camp shower, shirtless.  My neighbor informed me of a developed shower a short distance up the road.  “I see, you don’t want to watch me do this,” I joked.  “No, take off the rest of your clothes,” his wife shot back.  I used the shower in the building.

Southdown Plantation, Cajun Country, Louisiana

My plan for a boat ride through the swamp was foiled by a merciless rainstorm.  I awoke to a thrilling barrage of thunder and lightning and the downpour began soon after.  I had never seen rain of this magnitude in my life, but the locals in Houma acted as if it was no big deal.  Every lawn was under water.  Streams several inches deep ran down the better drained roads, and in some sections it was deeper.

The day’s entertainment was thus an indoor tour of the Southdown Plantation manor house.  Beyond the expected opulence of the mansion were stories of people ranging from sugarcane tycoons to a prominent senator, all of whom had lived in the house. The sugarcane fields had long since disappeared with town development.  My guide, Ethel, volunteers at Southdown once every two weeks.  Luckily I came on her day.  Ethel grew up on a working plantation herself.  The childhood experiences she related put her age near 100, but she didn’t look it.  “I think I’m in pretty good shape,” she said, smiling, as she moved up and down the staircases like a champ.

When another tourist went to touch an old table, Ethel stopped her with the utmost of grace.  “We ask our visitors not to touch.  The oils can harm the furniture.”  Ethel carried herself with a rare level of enthusiasm, politeness and dignity, and presented a wealth of interesting history about the area.  During the talk on sugarcane processing, the term bagasse (raw material) was used frequently.  The spectacle of aristocratic Ethel speaking authoritatively about “bag ass” was too funny, and I could not suppress my laughter.  She would have been justified in correcting me, but she did not.  As one who is typically bored senseless by artsy activities, I felt my time was well spent here.

After the house tour Ethel and her friend invited me into their office and tried to help me find an afternoon swamp tour.  This was fruitless because of the rain, but in the process we all had a great conversation.

Choupique Crawfish, Louisiana

Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge, LA: Click to enlarge.

My visit to Choupique Crawfish was a highlight of my trip to the South.  It is a drive-through takeout restaurant serving boiled crawfish and shrimp with potatoes and corn on the cob. After a busy day exploring the swamps of the Cameron Prairie and Lacassine refuges, I stopped for gas.  Across the parking lot I noticed a small building signed as Choupique Crawfish.  I walked in, curious to see what it was.  A fancily dressed young woman greeted me and showed me around as if I were an old friend.  She was accompanied by a young man and another woman, the owner.  The four of us chatted like family as they explained the operation and treated me to samples.  The crawfish are collected in large numbers from the family’s rice farm and stored live in large plastic and metal water tanks until they are boiled. The owner also teaches at the local school.  Customers can buy the crawfish live or cooked, and can reserve ahead of time.  To eat the crawfish, which are served whole, one must peel away the shell and tear the meat from the tail.  No one corrected my technique, so I assumed I was doing it right.

Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge, LA: Click to enlarge.

The group wondered if I was fishing on the refuges, but I explained I was just hiking and watching the animals.  “I’m from Colorado and all this is very exotic to me,” I said.  When I explained that I didn’t know where to stay for the night, the young man tipped me off to Holly Beach on the Gulf of Mexico.  Before I left, the owner said “let me give you dinner,” and returned with a large box containing at least 10 pounds of crawfish with several potatoes and cobs of corn.  The young woman then handed me a box of beautiful cooked shrimp.  I camped near the surf, where I enjoyed this unexpected gourmet meal.

By the next morning I was still stuffed from eating the crawfish, and more than half of the box remained.  I offered my leftovers to a group of 6 senior citizens gathered for a picnic.  They were bewildered as to why I couldn’t handle 10 pounds of crawfish, plus the shrimp plate and sides, on my own.  “You must not be from around here,” a man said.  I confirmed that was true.  A grandmotherly woman told me that she had eaten a 10-pound box of crawfish by herself the night before, and still had plenty of room for a nice dessert.  She spoke in a tone that seemed to imply I was a sissy, a lightweight.  As one who usually out-eats my companions by a wide margin, I got a huge kick out of this group taking me to task.  The important thing was that they were happy to take the crawfish before it spoiled.

Houma, Louisiana: Cajun Country

I pulled into Capri Park, my camping spot for the night.  I was assigned a site on the bayou at the far edge of the trailer park, touted by the manager as isolated and peaceful.

I met a permanent resident, Chad Meau.  He offered me a ride in his boat anytime, explaining that “I’m retired, I don’t do anything.”  He looked rather young for retirement, but he had the tan for it.  Chad told me he did not own a car, because there was no reason to.  He could easily get everywhere he wanted to go simply driving his boat through the bayous.  Chad, like many people I encountered in this area, spoke with a strong Cajun accent.  He repeated his last name 3 times before I understood him.  When he found out I was camping in earshot of the water pump, he patted me on the shoulder and said, “Good luck.”

I spent the next few hours exploring the Terrebonne, a 30-mile stretch of bayou country extending south of Houma and ending on the Gulf of Mexico.  This area is known for its Cajun families that stretch back many generations.

Driving into the town of Chauvin, I stopped at the Lapeyrouse Seafood Bar, Grocery & Campground.  Sheila Lapeyrouse immediately greeted me with a smile.  The Lapeyrouse family goes back over a hundred years here, and Sheila was kind enough to tell me about her great, great, great grandfather’s original store and house, and where to this day I could see the ruins.  This establishment is a relatively new addition.  Her father still owns it, but she runs the operation as he no longer works full time.  In hindsight I wish I had camped here.

Sheila left the area at a young age to work for Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, and was hired by Sam Walton himself.  She opened the Aurora, Colorado Sam’s Club near my hometown. After about 20 years with the company, she retired from a professional-level position and returned to Chauvin to run the family business.

Sheila presented me with a plate of fried fish, caught out of the bayou across the road that same evening.  It was delicious.  My next stop was the Cecil Lapeyrouse Grocery some distance south.  This is another of the family businesses, and has been around much longer.  The store sells everything from groceries and cookware to hand tools and car parts in a cramped yet orderly and comfortable floor space.

I continued south to Cocodrie and the Gulf.  The town largely consisted of a sprawling complex of rustic beach houses on 20-foot high stilts.  These all appeared to be vacation homes, and most were adorned with names and mascots.  One could see a high water line on the stilts.  There were many “For Rent” signs and a few “For Sale” signs.

Upon returning to Houma I stopped at Boudreau and Thibodeau’s for dinner.  Here I discovered beignets, now my favorite dessert.  It is a pita-shaped pastry coated with a seemingly impossible amount of powdered sugar.  I never pronounced “beignets” to the waitresses’ satisfaction.

Cameron Prairie and Lacassine, Louisiana

Cameron Prairie NWR, LA: Click to enlarge.

Louisiana is officially divided into 5 regions: Sportsman’s Paradise in the north, Crossroads in the central section, Cajun Country in the south, and Plantation Country and Greater New Orleans in the southeast. During a stop for gas in Crossroads, I met a taxidermist who was trying to research the prevailing prices for his services. He had just moved to the area from New Orleans, and could not locate any other taxidermists with which to compare. I observed this might be a good sign for his business, but he was preoccupied with finding a competitor. I told him where I had traveled and that I hadn’t seen any. He spoke articulately with an aristocratic tone and refined accent, and was a very friendly and polite man. His hair hung slightly past his shoulders and he was perhaps 5 feet 7 inches tall with a dark tan and lean physique. He wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a collared long sleeved shirt. This character, seemingly out of a movie, was my introduction to Louisiana.

Alligator, Cameron Prairie NWR, LA: Click to enlarge.

Located in Cajun Country outside of Lake Charles, the Cameron Prairie and Lacassine National Wildlife refuges feature sprawling swamps containing exotic birds, reptiles, and fish. I met a nice lady at the visitor center who tipped me off on the best places to see alligators and cottonmouth snakes. I saw very few other people during my exploration, and most of them were fishing. I found no snakes of any kind, but observed over 30 alligators inside an afternoon. One 12-foot gator and I stared at each other from about 2 feet away, until I stepped too close and he turned into deeper water with a sudden lunge and loud splash. He didn’t flee, but rather just put several more feet between us. In another area along a canal, 3 slightly smaller alligators were swimming together. One kept an eye on me while the other two faced the opposite direction into a flowing drain pipe, apparently waiting for fish. Turtles, some the size of serving platters, roamed the banks and shallows and moved surprisingly fast when I approached them.

Cameron Prairie NWR, LA: Click to enlarge.

Cameron Prairie NWR, LA: Click to enlarge.

Cameron Prairie was full of brilliantly colored birds. I watched a large crane-type bird through my binocular that was 3-4 feet tall. Its feathers were a bright purple color over its entire body, and I was amazed that such coloration existed in nature. I watched this bird for several minutes and finally saw it catch and eat something out of the water.

Cameron Prairie NWR, LA: Click to enlarge.

Cameron Prairie NWR, LA: Click to enlarge.

Cameron Prairie NWR, LA: Click to enlarge.

Alligator, Lacassine NWR, LA: Click to enlarge.

The Original Wal-Mart: Bentonville, AR

Original Walton store. The pickup in front is Walton’s model, but his actual truck is displayed securely indoors. Click to enlarge.

What would become Wal-Mart began as Walton’s Five-and-Dime store.  Sam Walton opened the store on the town square in Bentonville, AR in 1950.  Walton built a comparatively small regional chain of discount stores over 20 years.  While the business was successful, it was supported by a huge debt load.  The debt weighed on Mr. Walton as a terrible burden.  Sam decided to take the company public, as the stock sale would raise enough cash to pay off the debt and allow for large-scale expansion.  Wal-Mart became one of the best-performing stocks of the 1970’s – 1990’s.  The stock’s steady growth enriched many employees beyond their dreams, building nest eggs in the tens and hundreds of thousands, even millions, for store associates and managers alike.  Walton had an explicit policy of making his employees financial partners.  He didn’t see any other way to build a successful business.  Walton was publicly critical of execs who did otherwise, and who lived what he thought were excessively lavish lifestyles.

Bentonville, AR Town Square, across the street from Walton’s Five and Dime. Click to enlarge.

Wal-Mart is vilified today, but things might be different if Sam still ran the company.  He died of cancer in 1992.  In his book, Made in America, he stated that a month into retirement (forced by the cancer), he had a feeling that his successors were “screwing it up.”

The dime store is preserved down to the antiquated refrigerator in the corner and the obsolete BB guns and other 1950’s era merchandise adorning the shelves.  The floor space would fit inside a small living room.

Behind the original store is a much larger museum memorializing Walton and his company. Sam’s actual pickup truck, an orange 1979 Ford F-150 4WD with manual transmission and a single bench seat, is presented as he left it at the time of his death.  The interior smells of dogs and dirt.  A scratched-up, nondescript semi-automatic shotgun leans against the seat next to the gear shift, its barrel pointing into the floor.  Walton’s vehicle registration card and hunting license are displayed on the dashboard.  Walton, an avid quail hunter, was mocked for driving a pickup truck as a corporate executive.  His response was, “What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls Royce?”  His wife, Helen, added, “Sam just loved driving a truck.”

The museum’s central attraction is Sam Walton’s office, painstakingly reconstructed exactly as he left it upon retiring.  This was accomplished by thoroughly photographing everything at the corporate headquarters building where he worked, then packing it up and re-constructing it in the new location.  The tan carpeting is matted and faded.  Synthetic wood paneling, appearing to hail from the 1970’s, adorns the walls. The office is 15-20 feet square with a roughly 10-foot long utilitarian desk and a dingy white corded phone.  Bookshelves, a coffee table, chairs, and a small sofa complete the furnishings.  A shotgun sits in the corner, similar to the one in the truck.  As Walton flew his own plane, I wonder if he kept a shotgun handy in the Cessna.

In one of the many employee interviews on video in the museum, a former secretary relates how “Mr. Sam” was always leaving his briefcase behind on his travels.  They kept extras on hand in his office and in his plane, each one outfitted with needed tools and papers.  The exhibits and narratives in the museum portray Walton as utterly benevolent and jovial.  However, I later met one of his original hires.  She related how he could often be a stern and demanding taskmaster.  Once when she forgot to follow a certain procedure, he said, “I make rules for a reason and I expect you to follow them!”  That incident has stuck with her for a long time.

Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters remains in the old brick building in Bentonville.  It is a large facility, but no more than 10 stories high.  Parking overflows across the street. By appearances one would never think this was the HQ for one of the world’s largest corporations.

Ouachita National Forest, AR

Ouachita Nat’l Forest, AR, camp road: double-click to enlarge.

Ouachita is pronounced “watch-it-ah.”  After visiting Walton’s Five and Dime in Bentonville I headed to the National Forest for a night of free camping.  I drove a mile down the dirt forest road to flat ground under some power lines.  Around 2 am I suddenly awoke to a hound dog barking and howling right outside my tent.  I got out and petted the dog, sans owner.  The dog left.  Seeing what seemed to be camp lights a few hundred yards down the road, I thought nothing of it.

The next morning the dog was waiting 20 feet away from my tent when I got up.  After a greeting he headed back down the road, I presumed to his owner.  But when I drove out, there was no sign of any other people.  The dog, however, was still wandering the area.  I understand that in this part of the country some people let their dogs run free, so I hope he was okay.

Ouachita Nat’l Forest, AR, camp road: double-click to enlarge.

With a name like Nimrod, no wonder the Northerners make fun of the South. Double-click to enlarge.

Dalton Gang and The Jesus Christ Show

Dalton Gang house, southern Kansas: Double-click to enlarge.

I embarked on my first trip to the Deep South via Kansas and Oklahoma.  My first stop was the Dalton Gang’s old house in southern Kansas.  They were infamous bank robbers and murderers in the old west days.  An escape tunnel runs from the house a few hundred yards down the hill, and it’s end is now surrounded by touristy mockups of old west structures supposedly on the Daltons’ property during their heyday.  The attraction was closed by the time I arrived, which simply meant that I could explore the grounds and buildings without any interference.  No gated areas here.

As I sped through Oklahoma’s vast uninhabited grasslands the following Sunday, my radio found the Jesus Christ Show.  The premise is that listeners call and present their dilemmas to the host, Jesus Christ himself.   I anticipated absurd dialogue, but the host (whoever his true identity) was quite reasonable and sensible in his demeanor and advice.  The callers greeted him with “Hi, Jesus” or something similar, with a degree of sincerity

Trailer Church, Northern Louisiana: Double-click to enlarge.

suggesting they believed he was The One.  The first call was to settle a bible study argument over whether wine or grape juice was served at of the key events shortly before crucifixion.  Jesus assured the caller that it was wine, and explained that grape juice would make no sense given the circumstances.  He spoke in first person, authoritatively recounting his experiences from 2000 years ago.  The next caller wanted to know if eating meat was immoral.  Jesus advised that vegetarians are not morally superior to meat eaters, and if the animals in question are raised and slaughtered humanely that is acceptable.  He suggested the caller follow her diet of choice, as long as it was nutritious.  Next, a young woman wanted to know, in order to explain to a prolific “friend,” why the church frowned on sexual promiscuity.  Jesus discussed how this and similar stands by the church are practically relevant and in one’s best interest in the modern day; and that they are not just relics from archaic times.  And so it went for 45 minutes of radio reception.  The host maintained a kind and patient tone with each caller, and was interesting to hear.  Who do you suppose was truly taking the calls?

Trailer Church, Northern Louisiana: Double-click to enlarge.

The Jesus Christ show was a light warm-up to the strong religious culture throughout Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky.  I have never seen so many churches.  The majority were in double-wide trailers, with a few having pillar-style fancy structures and large cemeteries.

Church in rural Kentucky: Double-click to enlarge.