Tupelo to Natchez

Look familiar? And just so we get this out of the way because I know you are wondering... the "mechanic of the day" is Chris Moak who came to our assistance, roadside no less. (His friends from just across the road from where Tillie decided to stop gave him a call.) For a real job Moak repairs huge Caterpillar generator motors on oil rigs in the Gulf. For kicks he plays around with a friend who is a VW guru. (The guru, although Moak is certainly no slough, was off digging an outhouse for artifacts... for fun...) At any rate, the guru has the part we need but we have to wait until he gets home so we left Tillie beside the road and Moak brought us to a hotel he recommended. He'll fix Tillie and deliver her to us later. Mississippi folks are the best!

Now that that bit of info is out of the way... we started the day at Elvis' birthplace in Tupelo. This is John age 65 next to Elvis age 13. Age is only an illusion. It also turns out Tupelo's shimmering and shaking is not limited to Elvis. It's also the home of America's first fish hatchery which we chose to bypass. Instead we hopped onto the Natchez Trace Parkway again and headed to Natchez. 260 beautiful miles through Mississippi countryside with no traffic lights or stop signs and almost no traffic. I counted 11 vehicles in the last 33 miles we traveled. Along the way we saw turkeys, deer, hawks, heron, daffodils, armadillos, cotton fields, Spanish moss and had a picnic lunch beside the Pearl River. It's a great way to cross Mississippi and enjoy one of our National Parks.

The one off the parkway stop we did make was at the little town of Kosciusko for gas. By chance, it turns out to be the birthplace of Opray Winfrey so of course we had to go take a look... Obviously no one has caught on that if they were to capitalize on this and open something for tourists on the site they might go a long way in bringing in some added jobs and revenue to the low income folks on this back country road. PS - This was the first stop of the day where Tillie had to be "defibbed" to get started again.

Given Tillie's fickleness, we dare not push our luck by traveling on a Sunday so we're staying put in Natchez for a day. Monday we have a better chance of finding someone new for Tillie to meet.