Tuesday, October 30: 2001: near Larue, Mississippi
Roy from picked us up at the motel yesterday morning and drove us back up to McHenry, so we could start walking from where we left off on Saturday. We had lunch with him at a place called Logan's, and then we walked about eight miles east into the DeSoto National Forest again. It was a good day of walking. We only saw about five cars all day.
The sun began going down at around 5:00 pm, due to the daylight savings time adjustment, and so we ended our day rather early and set up camp. We were right on the verge of falling asleep, it must have been around 6:30, and I heard something walking through the woods...and coming closer to our tent. My first thought was, it's just a deer, but as the footsteps kept coming closer and closer to our tent, I knew that a deer wouldn't approach us that way. It would certainly be able to smell us; we'd been walking all day in the Mississippi humidity. Now my heart started to race, and I started thinking, "Could it be a panther, or maybe a wild boar?" "What is that?" I said, as it moved right in front of our tent, and I squinted to get a better look without my glasses. Brandi said, "It's a dog," and this dog walked right up and sat down in front of our tent.
As my pulse began to return to normal (it took a few minutes), I was able to tell that it was a nice dog and terribly in need of some human affection --to say the least. We decided not to make too good of friends with her that night, for fear that she would try to claw her way into the tent to sleep with us, and resolved to deal with her in the morning, if she was still there. Eventually, she laid down in front of our tent and went to sleep, and we went to sleep, too.
This morning, when I looked outside to see her greeting me with wagging tail, I knew that we had a new companion. This was definitely a "people dog." The closest house was probably more than a mile away, and we assumed that someone didn't want her anymore and had dropped her off in the forest. She was going to need a name, and some breakfast if she was going to follow us all day, so we decided to call her Darlin' and fed her a couple of bagels before her long walk. The bagels went down quick. Darlin' was hungry.
Darlin' followed us for about eight miles today. She was a pretty good walking dog, except for the few times when she ran a little too close to the passing cars. We had prayed this morning that we would be able to help Darlin' get to where she was supposed to be today. Brandi and I plan to get on a bus to visit our families for Christmas, and we just can't be dog owners right now.
We stopped at a house to get water late in the afternoon and met a man named Mark, who offered to let Darlin' stay around his farm. He said that he could probably find her a home, and we could tell that she was getting really tired of walking. About an hour later, Mark drove out to tell us that he had found Darlin' a new home at his brother-in-law's house. We don't really know what her name was before today, and we don't really know what people will call her from now on, but she'll always be Darlin' to us.
The past few days we have been walking through the DeSoto National Forest, sometimes on paved roads, sometimes on dirt roads. I always enjoy walking in the woods and thoroughly enjoy the lack of traffic. Brandi and I have been putting in a lot of miles trying to make it to Grand Bay, Alabama by Saturday.
Today, we walked out of the National Forest, veered southeast, and walked into a town called Vancleave, Mississippi. It's Halloween, and I always try to find an extra safe place to be on Halloween night. People have been known to do stupid things on Halloween, and I like to be out of their way when they do. Halloween this year includes a full moon, so I was looking for an extra, extra safe place to be. We found a campground outside of Vancleave today, and I feel pretty good about where we are staying tonight.
Jeff at Red Creek Taxidermy
This afternoon, we walked past a sign that read, "Red Creek Taxidermy," and after a brief discussion that revealed that neither Brandi nor I had really watched a taxidermist at work, we decided to stop and have a look. Inside we met a man named Jeff, who was glad to show us a few things about his trade. We talked with Jeff for a couple of hours while he was preparing a deer for mounting. He told us that taxidermy was what he was born to do.
Jeff has been a taxidermist in Vancleave for years, and he is very good at what he does. In his shop were loads of mounted deer, bass, turkeys, raccoons, pheasants, a bobcat, and as you can see in the background of this picture, a wild boar. I asked him, "What was the most unusual animal that you have ever preserved?" His reply was, "A St. Bernard." It seems that a few years ago a wealthy woman from North Carolina wanted her pet St. Bernard around longer than most people want their pet St. Bernard around. He said that it was quite a project.
Yes, it was a fascinating trip to the taxidermist for both of us. That wild boar was my favorite piece in the shop. Folks have been telling us about these creatures that live in the swamp country of Southern Louisiana and Mississippi, but we hadn't seen one until today. They look pretty mean and capable of doing some damage with those tusks. Our friend Greg (the guy who cooked us squirrel for lunch back in Louisiana) recommended climbing the nearest tree if we ever ran into a female wild boar with her young. I hope it never comes to that.
Wild Boar
Friday, November 2, 2001: Tanner Williams, Alabama
Our last fifteen miles of Mississippi were fairly uneventful. We walked through the little town of Wade on Thursday. Wade is really just an intersection with a couple of gas stations and food marts. We chose to stop at the Chevron station in Wade, because it had a Subway. A nice man named Harold asked us where we were hiking to, which sparked a brief conversation. It turned out that the Chevron station was Harold's family business, and he treated us to a lunch of Subway sandwiches that day.
Today, we walked through a town called Hurley and six more miles to the state line of Alabama. We only spent twelve days in Mississippi and walked about one hundred miles.
Roy from picked us up at the motel yesterday morning and drove us back up to McHenry, so we could start walking from where we left off on Saturday. We had lunch with him at a place called Logan's, and then we walked about eight miles east into the DeSoto National Forest again. It was a good day of walking. We only saw about five cars all day.