Travel with No Boundaries: January 4, Tupelo and Jackson, MS

Yesterday, Jan 3, we woke to heavy rain in the Louisville area. It sounded like someone was aiming a hose at our hotel window. We left Shepherdsville at 8:15am, still raining but not as hard. We were in rain for about half the day and then voila! sun comes out and temperature warms up to 70°. We gained an hour in the morning, and arrived in Tupelo at 3:45pm, to Tombigbee state park. Very nice park with one camping loop and lots of bike trails that we didn't get to use. Oh well. Took a nice walk with the dogs around one of the trail loops before dark. And bad blogger that I am, I didn't get a photo of our campsite.

Stats: 400 miles driven, 13mpg, gas $2.79/gallon.

This morning we woke to sun and 50°. Had an easy morning and departed campground at 9:30am. Tent campers next to us from Canandaigua, also heading to New Orleans. Small world.

We headed directly to the Natchez Trace visitor center 20 miles away from the campground. The Natchez Trace is over 400 miles long, and we drove one small section of it. It is a nice drive in the woods but I have to say I was a bit disappointed. All of the historic stops are just pull offs with a sign telling you what used to be there. Very few actually have something there to look at. The recreated pre-historic mounds are small and unimpressive. We stopped for lunch in Kosciusko, MS and did not get back on it. Somewhat disappointing.

Arrived in Jackson, MS at 4pm after driving a paltry 200 miles. We are staying at LeFluer's Bluff state park. The park is named for Louis LeFleur, a French-Canadian explorer who established a trading post on the banks of the Pearl River in the late 1700s. The City of Jackson was originally known as "LeFleur's Bluff.".

There are fun cypress knees here and we have already seen three good birds: Red headed woodpecker, Anhinga, Great Egret. Tomorrow we had to St Bernard's State park outside New Orleans where we will be fer 3 or 4 days.

Some photos of today.