Taking the Road Less Traveled

Living large. A glass of wine on the banks of the Tombigbee River in Alabama

Robert Frost, the Vermont poet, wrote:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

We did the same when we came to Tallahassee, the capital of Florida. We still were on the interstate which travels east-to-west across the top of Florida. It is a real eye-opener every time we’ve taken this road. When you leave Interstate 75 and take I-10, the mileage marker informs you that Pensacola, on Florida’s western tip of the panhandle, is 300 miles away. We had stopped in Tallahassee in a Walmart parking lot. Now we were ready to edge our way off the interstate and cross into Alabama.

The time change to Central Time also throws the traveler off on this stretch of road. But then Frost’s words settled into my consciousness and we began to feel the difference. Alabama is beautiful at this moment in the spring. Redbud trees are in full bloom – even a smattering of forsythia. There are few towns on the southern edge of the state -  just a tumbledown jumble of tired old houses that have seen much better days.

But there is sweetness to the place and there’s history. What is the story, I wondered, when we drove across a little bridge over Murder Creek? Another four miles up the road we came to Burnt Corn Creek. Jo was driving at the time which gave me the time to allow my mind and imagination to wander. Were these two creeks linked in history? We’ll never know, of course, but I surmise that the burning of the corn resulted in the murder. Maybe it was the other way around: The boys committed the murder and then rode up to the corn crib and set it afire.

We were heading for Coffeeville, Alabama, where we knew we’d find an Army Corps of Engineers campground. These are national treasures – particularly if you are older than 62. Half-price admission for the old folks if you carry an “America the Beautiful” Pass. And why wouldn’t you. It costs us $10 for life and it allows free entry to National Parks as well as half-price camping at Corps of Engineers campgrounds.

We arrived in mid-afternoon and Mary, our campground host, welcomed us and told us we had chosen a less desirable slot for our motorhome. “You want a pull-through parking spot along the water so you can watch the river traffic,” she told me in a musical, but thick, Alabama accent, I had chosen a slot on the back side of the campground when I booked via the internet. So she reassigned us to the riverfront. There were only two other rigs in the campground because it’s pretty early in the season. 

Warblers chattered away in the just-budding sycamore trees while cormorants flew upriver in great squadrons. Heavy tugs shoved their cargo up the Tombigbee River. This massive inland waterway connects the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers with the Alabama River and, eventually the Gulf of Mexico.

After we were settled, we were visited by Don, another volunteer host. He lives in a round tent and was blowing sycamore seedpods off the road. Don told us he had hiked the Appalachian Trail, south to north over a period of two years. He’s in his mid-seventies and looked pretty fit.

Tiny bug sits up a Corps of Engineers Witness Post.

We loved the campground’s peacefulness and decided to stay an additional night. This allowed time for exploring the trails and making a run by car to Coffeeville to purchase new cat food. Our cats had decided the Rachel Ray special food was no longer satisfactory and both spent time horking it up. Because it was a new bag, we figured there was something in the contents that had been changed. There’s only a single store at the crossroads and the choices were pretty limited. But they’re now enjoying their Purina chow.

We checked the weather on our iPad and decided to push on to Jackson, Mississippi, on Saturday. The rain caught up with us as we climbed farther north and we pulled into a parking lot on the south side of the city.

Jackson is the capitol of the state. Back in the early 1800s, when surveyors were dispatched to find a suitable site for the capital, they were urged to find something in the center of the state. That didn’t work out, however, because the center is a swamp. Jackson was chosen because it’s on the Pearl River and it was a transportation hub.

We came in with a quote. Let’s leave in the same way. Bob Dylan wrote this in Outlaw Blues in 1972:

“I got a woman in Jackson
I ain't gonna say her name
I've got a woman in Jackson
I ain't gonna say her name

She's a
Brown-skin woman
But I
I love her just the same.”