The Last Leg

Leaving New Orleans was sad, but I knew I'd be back. It was time to hit the road and check out Mississippi. I finished my tour of the bayou though the scenery was still a bit swampy.

Irish Bayou sounds intriguing.

Fishers in the bayou

Leaving bayou land

Towards the end of my Mississippi leg the dogs and I needed to pee. I saw a brown sign for Dunn's Falls and using Google Maps discovered this natural wonder was only four miles from the interstate. I had no idea what to expect but was sure we could at a minimum find a pee spot, and in best case scenario see a waterfall. 

View of the grist mill from the pee and pay shack.

Dunn's fall required a 3.25 admission fee. I had exact change=win for team weiner. Also, the sign lied, it was past Labor Day and they were open.

Dunn's Falls was created by an Irish man named John Dunn in 1850 to provide power for his grist mill. The original grist mill no longer stands but they imported another 1850's grist mill from Georgia in the late 1980's. I didn't think Mississippi had that kind of cash flow but what do I know? The falls are atop the "Chunky River".

The Georgian grist mill atop Mississippi's Dunn's falls

Though not forbidden either....

View from the top of the stairs

If you've read my other weiner dog road trip blogs you can probably guess that the dogs had to be carried down these steps. However, this was far easier than carrying them up one of the Appalachian Mountain peaks.

Let's cool down despite recommendations!

Looking up at the old grist mill

We waded around in the cool water below the falls. Before long we were joined by a Southern couple who decided to take pictures in the pool. The woman was wearing one of those "keep calm" shirts, but her's said this: 

I found this a bit ironic as it was actually a bit unsafe walking around under the falls due to many slippery, moss-covered rocks. 

A nice couple joined me and took my picture

As the couple and I made our way back to the steps I commented that her shirt was very appropriate for the occasion. This flummoxed her for a few moments and she even seemed a little taken aback so I exclaimed "safety first"? Then she kind of got it. I decided to skip any discussion about the irony of the situation. I was dying to know why she had bought that shirt and why she was slipping around under a waterfall wearing it but I guess I'll never know. 

The picture below serves dual purposes. For one I've been including signs from every state I traveled through on my trip. The second reason is to demonstrate just how nasty the bugs got my windshield in Mississippi. If I didn't have plenty of windshield wiper fluid I would have been screwed. I would have had to pull over every 20 minutes or so to clean a place on my windshield to see out of. The slogan on the welcome to Mississippi sign is "birthplace of America's music". I would argue it should say "prepare vehicle for an onslaught of big juicy bugs, turn around now if you don't have adequate wiper fluid". Though I suppose if they did this they would miss out on some big tourism dollars so I don't begrudge them the omission.

If that's going to be their sign I think it should say "we love lynyrd skynyrd" underneath, not governor so and so

I tried to explain this Alabama ambulance photo to a fellow yank. I don't follow sports, but living in Tennessee, close to Alabama for the last five years I know two things.

1. Alabama fans call their football? team "Bama"

2. The war cry for their football? team is "rolltide". 

Suffice to say when I saw this ambulance I had the "oh, i recognize those sayings and what a funny little thing they did to combine the "bama" thing with ambulance. 

In Alabama the scenery got greener, hillier, and overall less swampy. Though I wasn't quite to Tennessee yet, I felt like I was home. My only foray into local culture confirmed this sentiment when I stopped at an Alabama gas station. I ran inside to pee before gassing up and the dogs did what they always do when I leave them in the car- they started barking and crying as though we would never see each other again. After peeing, as I walked back to my car of screaming dogs, a late teens, early 20's boy looked at me and innocently inquired in his sweet little southern accent:

"What kind of puppies you got in there"? 

I told him, he smiled, and we went our separate ways. 

I got back on the highway, and before I knew it, I was home.

Home sweet home in my green misty land. Good job keeping it simple on the sign Tennessee.