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!"
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.
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