2005/04 Deep South trip - Tishomingo park |
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Friday April 8th
Friday morning was wet, foggy, and cool, so we were in no hurry to go exploring. We were going back north up the Trace, to look at what we’d missed in our rush to get to a campsite. We also took a side trip to Columbia, Tennessee to deal with gas, the post office, and booze. This part of Tennessee at least is “wet”. However, the state has its own weird rules. Liquor stores can sell whisky and wine, but not beer. Supermarkets can only sell beer.
Back on the Trace, we visited the Meriwether Lewis monument. He was the Lewis in “Lewis and Clark” 
and life went downhill for him in the years after his journey across the continent, and he shot himself here on his way from Natchez to Washington. We also walked a number of trails through the forest. The rocks here are layered sandstone, and they result in many beautiful, stepped waterfalls. As the leaves are only just coming out, there’s plenty of light for the spring wildflowers: phlox, trilliums, delphiniums, violets, pansies, and a lot more we didn’t recognize. Above them is the understory of purple redbud trees and cream dogwoods. I’d expected the forests this far south to look more tropical, but they are very similar to 
the forests in our area, a mixture of pines and hardwoods. I also expected more bugs. There are a few mosquitoes, but no biting flies at the moment. We don’t miss them!
There are also “historical markers” along the Trace, some of them interesting and some of them, like the “Dogwood Mudhole was two miles from here”, that we classified as an “anti-boredom marker”, something to get you out of your car and reading a sign.
As it was a Friday we were early looking for a campsite. We’d crossed from Tennessee into a corner of 
Alabama and then quickly into Mississippi, and we ended up there at Tishomingo state park, on the edge of Haines Lake. The campground there has lakeshore, a stream, a heron or two, and five mallards that run the place. After visiting our doorway to extract the usual camping fees (bread rolls), they preened for a few minutes and then curled up next to us by the picnic table and dozed off. The drake kept one eye open in case we brought any more food out.
Next.