Side Trip: Tishomingo State Park, MS

As it turned out, Tishomingo State Park was right down the road from the high point--or it would have been, had I not made a right where the sign said to turn left and spent 15 minutes following a gravel road to its end in the Mississippi countryside. Suspecting my error, I did an about-face (well, more like a three-point turn) and backtracked to the main road, where signs for Tishomingo beckoned from across the street.

That park, I must say, was a pleasant surprise, one of only two places on this whole south-central tour I'd care to revisit (along with Mina Sauk Falls in Missouri).

I arrived around midafternoon (on Thursday the 12th, for those of you who like to keep track of dates) and found the park nearly empty--and all the other folks were in RVs, so I had my pick of tent sites. While registering at the front desk, I mentioned to the ranger that I had been to the high point. She apologized for the lackluster display up there--apparently there had been more signs and such, but they'd been taken down due to persistent vandalism. This is why we can't have nice things.

Rather than return to my campsite by the road, I took a trail through the park. The hiking brochure promised rock outcroppings, and the trail delivered.

Highpoint #12: Woodall Mountain, MS (807')

In retrospect, Florida was a turning point in my trip. Out of the Appalachians, the high points were lower and the drives between them longer. I went from hiking an average of five miles a day to driving an average of six hours, from shivering in the alpine cold to sweating through my shirt in a hot, airless car, from marveling at mountain panoramas to squinting at road signs. At first I welcomed the change, but as the miles stacked up and my legs went from rested to restless I began to wonder why I was doing this. What bizarre calculus had urged me to drive all those hours through the middle of nowhere just so I could walk a few hundred feet up a hill and stand atop a state best known for its flatness? Completionism? Stubbornness? A desire to "pick off the easy ones" (fueled mostly by laziness but also, more sinisterly, by self-doubt)?

No matter, I suppose. I did it, and it's done, and I don't ever have to do it again.

In all fairness, this leg of the trip wasn't entirely without value. I saw places and things I don't reckon I would have ever seen otherwise (i.e. Arkansas), got more practice driving on twisty mountain roads, added a few birds to my life list (though not the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker), and gained deep insights into the life of a long-haul trucker.

But let's return to the story at hand.

The first thing I noticed after crossing into Mississippi was how red the ground was: the dirt, the rocks, even the pavement:

Like that.