Spontaneity for the Win

 Last week Meg and I left my Mom's condo around 6pm and began driving home like normal. However on the way I began telling Meghan about a cemetery I had been looking up in Aberdeen, MS and Meghan said, this is paraphrasing but close enough, "we should go there, want to?" And I said "yeah, do you mean now?" And she said "yeah" and I said "yeah" and so we changed direction and highway and began driving south. It was about 7pm on Friday and we had work at 5am on Sunday so this had to be a quick trip. Also we had nothing with us. Meg called a hotel in Tupelo to get a room and I went inside a Walmart to get toothbrushes, tooth paste, and a few other essentials. When I came back out I called my Mom, who was waiting for us to call her when we got home, so she would know not to expect the call for awhile.  

Funny thing is when I made the Natchez Trace trip I purposely made sure we wouldn't be driving it at night because it is very dark and there are a lot of deer and I know my luck... So guess what road the GPS decided we should take between 9-11pm. Yup. Guess what we saw: a lot of deer and one super adorable fox. We also made it just fine with only one or two real serious brake checks. The room was nice but there was one problem... we were right across from the elevator and Gypsy Rover was determined to keep us safe from the dinging of the elevator bell with all her might.  So we turned up the air and put the tv on to try and block the sound of the elevator and that worked pretty well. 

Having had such good success with Hunt's Donuts in Branson I searched for best coffee in Tupelo and Strange Brew popped up, even better it was five minutes away. 

I got their signature drink the Albino Squirrel with white chocolate and hazelnut while I got Meg a Darth Mocha or as it described it: "the latte you are looking for." And we each got a parfait. 

Then we began driving the rest of the way to Aberdeen and the Old Aberdeen Cemetery to look for two specific graves. However I did not realize there were two cemeteries and we ended up spending some time in the Odd Fellows Cemetery before finding the one we really wanted. In the Odd Fellows cemetery we saw two graves that grabbed our attention they were from the same family, Terrell. One had a weeping angel lying over a grave the other had a woman with her fist held high.

 

Then the grave of James Ronnie Warren, cobbler, which featured a shoe flower pot with beautiful flowers in it. I also stopped by the intricately designed grave of Karen Rye who died young at the age of 55. 

 Having not found either of the two graves I had come to find we began trying to find a more specific location and that was when we learned we were in the wrong cemetery. Across the street was the Old Aberdeen Cemetery which I had just assumed was also another name for the Odd Fellows. In the old Aberdeen Cemetery the oldest grave is from 1838 when Abel Pierson was buried on the property. The first record of this being a public cemetery was in 1845 when graves were being sold by the city for $5. In 1979 the cemetery was certified as a historically significant abandoned cemetery. In the 1920s the Cemetery Care Organization used the Aberdeen Examiner to publicize the name of the people who helped and donated to the care of the cemetery. Today it is definitely being maintained in fact the ground crew was there and doing an excellent job. 

The first grave we were looking for was Alice, wife of Needham Whitfeld. Urban legend says that Alice loved her rocking chair and knitting and that she died while knitting. Also legend goes that she is buried in her favorite chair. The second grave we were looking for was Mary Points who was killed in a  fire in 1852. On the grave her image looks as those it is on fire. Her stone is toppled over and has a crack in it but can still be seen.

On our way to our next stop, because now we were looking for things on our route back home, we passed a cute small town square in Houston, MS which a memorial stone explained was named by Joel Pinson in honor of his friend Sam Houston. Joel donated the 80 acres that the town was started on.

And then we reached Vardaman, Mississippi the Sweet Potato capital of the world. They have a festival in November so we can go back sometime for the festival. But for today we got a sweet potato cheesecake and some pies and sweet potato sausage balls. 

A fun roadside gimmick that I have seen listed in several places is the hot and cold water towers. You know when you have water towers dotting your landscape why not have a little fun? Bad angle but one says hot and one says cold Ruleville, MS.

Now it was getting late because we had spent way more time at the cemetery than I planned so we started toward TN and Memphis to catch I-40 and go home. On the way as we were driving along a small country highway we looked to our right and saw what we could only describe as a baby tornado. We now know it was a dust devil caused by the warm earth and an updraft of air. 

 

We made our last stop in Nesbit, MS to see snowball throwing polar bears outside an ice cream stand. And we were going to get ice cream but they had a really high fee for using credit cards and we opted not to pay it.

Shortly after that we crossed back in to TN near Memphis to catch  I-40 home but first we needed to stop for dinner. Meg found a brewery called Meddlesome Brewing which conveniently had a food truck, Flying Sobie's Hen House, out back. So we had half a cornish hen with Memphis Gold barbecue sauce and a flight of house beer. Delicous. 

Now with most sports cancelled because of Covid 19 a lot of channels have begun showing classic games. well we found a radio station playing a classic radio broadcast of Game 1 on the 1967 World Series. There we were in the seventh inning with Bob Gibson pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals and Harry Caray and Pee Wee Reese were announcing. So many names were familiar like Lou Brock who went 4 for 4 with two runs scored. Roger Maris one of my baseball heroes, Tim McCarver, and the versatile Carl Yastrzemski. Gibson was well on his way to a complete game and ten strike out game. Sadly we lost the station early in the ninth inning and returned to music. 

A couple days later at home we had the cheesecake and a crowler of Meddlesome's Under Pressure. 

Next trip is a drive north to Ohio. Not a new state because technically we already stood in Ohio but this way we really get to see the state.