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:
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| Like that. |
