Mississippi: Boiled P-Nuts and Ex-Exxons

Today I woke up with a headache, and then I started to feel queasy but couldn't make myself eat. Did I get dehydrated yesterday? But I drank a lot of water! Was I hung over? But I just had two five-ounce beers with lunch. I think it was the moon pies, since I ate two of them: one at the parade, and one at the hotel because they had a big plate of them. If you have never had moon pies, they are a sugar sandwich: a marshmallow between two chocolate... marshmallows? Two is two too many.

Today we drove through Mississippi, on a remote highway without a lot of stuff on it, so practically every time we saw a gas station, we had to stop for nose powdering purposes. Travalon got chicken wings at one stop, so I had a couple of those, and then at the next stop he bought boiled peanuts, so I had half of those and felt much better. I also had a package of goldfish crackers that we got at the parade. Goldfish crackers and boiled peanuts are so restorative, apparently. Travalon said I should call this blogpost something about boiled p-nuts, since that was what they were called when we got them on another trip. These peanuts were just called "boiled peanuts," but I'm calling them p-nuts anyway. 

There were quite a few defunct gas stations along this highway, and imagine my horror when I really had to pee and saw a big Exxon sign, just to find that the place was abandoned. It was an ex-Exxon.

The big thing we did today was go hiking at Clarkco State Park. There was a path around Ivy Lake, some of it road and some of it dirt, and it took us about an hour to do it. Here are some photos. Yes, we did cross these bridges.

Here is Ivy Lake.

Here we are on the path in the woods.

A view of the lake from a lookout platform.

There were these tents on the "primitive camping" sites that Travalon said reminded him of something from the Civil War.

We also crossed this bridge.

On one side was this bayou.

On the other side, toward the lake, we saw these Muscovy ducks.

This is looking toward the lake from the bridge.

These yuccas were the last vestiges of tropical-looking plants that far north.

The lake really looks like one up north in Wisconsin, surrounded by pine trees.

Right near where we had started, we saw these cute ducks. "What did you say?"

I said, "I've finally got all my ducks in a row!"

"Ha! Now that's funny!"

Here you can see almost all of them. There is a mallard drake, three white domestic ducks, and two that look like some sort of hybrid.

A black cat we had seen earlier spotted the ducks.

The ducks were curious about the cat too.

Then the cat looked at us, and it looked like a tiny black panther.

This is a good shot of all six ducks as they bid us and the cat adieu.

As you can see from our clothes, it was much colder today. By the time we got to our hotel in Jackson, Tennessee, it was in the high 30s! We did have southern food today: besides the boiled peanuts, I had fried okra at lunch, along with mac and cheese, and green beans with bacon. At dinner I could have had catfish, but I wanted the lobster bites and shrimp, and for sides I had mac and cheese, and green beans that supposedly had bacon, but I didn't see any. I mean, they seemed perfectly safe to eat next Friday. And I will be good this Lent, to atone for how badly I have eaten on this Mardi Gras trip.

Famous Hat

Along the Forgotten Coast

 

Although we spent most of the day in Alabama yesterday, we did reach Florida around the time Night Prayer started. We stayed in Marianna, and this morning we got up and drove to St. Andrews, because there is a good coffee place there. We took our iced coffees and walked to the marina, and did we ever see birds! Some of them are birds we have in Wisconsin during the warmer months, so this must be one of the places they go for the winter. Wouldn't it be crazy if they were actual birds we have seen in Wisconsin? Maybe they would recognize me: "There's the short human with the weird thing on her head. What's she doing here?" Here are some photos. First, these black-headed gulls that might be Bonaparte gulls. They make a laughing call.

And there were these tiny, adorable sandpiper things.

Isn't this a female bufflehead just like we have off our dock in the spring?

And we saw lots of loons with their winter coloring.

I think this is a mourning dove, like we have back home.

These are some boats in the marina.

Then we continued to drive down the so-called Forgotten Coast to Mexico Beach, which had been devastated by a hurricane the last time we passed through but is recovering nicely now. Here we are at the beautiful beach.

The bird party looks like a parade! There were several types of gulls, terns, and sandpipers.

This tern kept pestering another tern, maybe its mother?

Here you can see two types of terns, a larger one with an orange beak and black feet and a black crest (I think those might be Caspian terns), and a smaller one with orange feet and a black beak and a black mask around its eyes.

I think this is a herring gull, with some of the smaller type of tern behind it.

You can see the difference in size between the sandpiper and the immature herring gull!

Here you can see terns and those black-headed gulls, with herring gulls closer to the water.

A closer shot of one of the black-headed gulls.

Here you can see a black-headed gull, the larger terns, and a sandpiper.

I love how the little sandpipers like to stand on one leg. They will even hop on it away from you, unless you get too close - and then they will run very fast on both legs!

In Apalachicola, we stopped at a boardwalk and saw this brown pelican.

We also saw an egret, but that photo didn't turn out as well. Then we drove over the causeway to St. George Island, and brown pelicans kept flying right over our car. On the island we ate at a sports bar with a flooded parking lot because we didn't see the restaurant right on the beach. Then we went to the historic lighthouse. This is an old light in the museum.

Here are some different views of the lighthouse.

This one is looking at it from the beach.

And here is the beach. So gorgeous!

At the sports bar, Mango Mike's, we sat in this oversized chair:

It almost doesn't look too big for Travalon, right?

Since we ate a late lunch and lost an hour of time from crossing time zones, we didn't want to eat dinner until after nine. We went to a place called Hip Hop Chicken and Fish, where we both got catfish, and Travalon got wings while I got fried green tomatoes. They are good and don't taste anything like tomatoes. I can't really describe them, maybe a little like okra? But sweeter. They told us the dining room was closed, so we sat at a table outside, and then some guy was revving his motorcycle right behind us. Still, we were excited just to eat outside. 

Even on vacation, I must do DuoLingo, and I completed the February Challenge.

When I texted this sticker to Travalon, he texted back a photo of Ka-Ching Bear all excited for me.

Speaking of stuffies, as we drove to St. Andrews we lost signal and couldn't play music in the car, so we entertained ourselves with asking the Earl of Wafford questions. We asked where his earldom was, and he said Brunchlandia, and Travalon said I had to blog about that. We can't remember any of the rest of the conversation offhand, like his friend from Lunchlandia and the song about syrup on his face. Maybe tomorrow, if I remember, I can tell you more about this.

Famous Hat

Bachelorette Weekend

I hope that my readers had a good weekend. I was a bachelorette myself, except for Friday evening, when Travalon and I went back to the Cherokee Country Club for their amazing Puttin’ on the Ritz Cod, and then we went to the Dane Dance. Unfortunately it was inside, at the Alliance Center, but the disco cover band was great. We missed the salsa band.

Saturday Travalon went up north to hang out with his friend who lives in Japan but is visiting for a few weeks. I met Rich, OK Cap, and that woman who doesn’t have a name on this blog for coffee, then OK Cap and I prayed the rosary. Rich, Kathbert, and I went for a hike in the Arboretum, then in the evening I met the Slow Food crowd for dinner at a ramen restaurant. It’s different than our usual style, when we each get a small plate and share with each other, since it isn’t too easy to share ramen. We all had a good time anyway.

Yesterday I had promised to spend the day with Hockey Girl, so she and I had brunch at Lazy Jane’s, then we heard a steel drum band (the same one Travalon and I heard on the Union Terrace) at the Orton Park Festival, then we went to Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse and ended with an early dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Middleton that does serve cactus as a side – always the sign of a good Mexican restaurant! We had originally been planning to go to a Mexican festival in Milwaukee, but she had a dance practice pretty early in the evening, so we wouldn’t have had much time there. In the evening I had band practice, and our guitarist gave us all produce from her garden. I took collard greens, so tonight I should have an adventure figuring out how to cook them. Maybe tomorrow I’ll blog about how they turned out.

Famous Hat

Southern Fried Post

I live in that strange limbo:  too far south for Tim Horton's, too far north for Waffle House.  My godparents once gave me some coupons for Tim Horton's that could only be used in the US, which is like giving someone coupons for Waffle House that can only be used in Maine.  Everyone knows Tim Horton's is in Canada and Waffle House is only south of the Mason-Dixon line.  You can tell you've left the South when you no longer see those yellow and black signs everywhere.

People will ask me, "Do you like (Chinese, Italian, Thai, Mexican, etc.) food?" and I say, "Take away that first word and you've got it."  However, I do have a special place in my heart for Southern food.  You have to love people who take healthy things like okra and collard greens and then deep fry them or add pork fat to completely ruin their nutritional value.  Not to mention taking something inherently evil like a Twinkie and making it even worse by deep frying it!  (I have never personally tried a deep-fried Twinkie; it's like gilding the lily, if lilies were utterly revolting.)  

The other day a friend and I went to a so-called "Southern" restaurant, and do you know they did not have okra OR collard greens on the menu??  Nor did they have turnip greens, mustard greens, or even grits.  At least they had corn bread and several things on the menu that contained sweet potatoes...  But no hush puppies!  What could be better than deep-fried balls of cornmeal?  Talk about a completely useless food item.  I LOVE them!!!

Once a coworker and I were speaking fondly of Southern food, and she asked me, "Did you used to date a black guy?"  She was surprised that a northern white girl would even know about such things.  Although I think calling us black and white is kind of silly, because even if I had the basic box of crayons, I'd still color her brown and myself pink, and if I had that deluxe box, she would be raw umber and I would be apricot.  I have actually never dated a black guy, although I have no problem with the idea.  I have just never been asked out by a devout Catholic black guy who could build a house from scratch.  If this sounds like you, and you can grill catfish, give me a call.  My sweet potato pie is out of this world!

Famous Hat