Mississippi

From Lake Chicot State Park, we headed out to get back on US 82. The only downside to Lake Chicot State Park was that it was a ways around the lake to the park and then back out.

We had checked GasBuddy and determined that we should wait to fill up after we crossed into Mississippi as the average gas prices were cheaper in Mississippi than Arkansas. When you’re putting 40-60 gallons in, it can make sense to watch prices, but… at 6-8 mpg, it doesn’t make sense to drive many miles out of your way to save a few cents!

We enjoyed seeing the Mississippi river from the US 82 bridge – Dwayne took some pictures but they didn't come out too good...

We got gas and breakfast in Greenville, MS.

The eastern part of Arkansas and western part of Mississippi had a lot of agricultural land. Cotton was being harvested and we saw huge bundles at the edges of fields.

Cotton bales

Cotton bales

They were also doing some sort of farming in low ponds; we think this may have been rice.

Rice paddy?

One of the things we are considering when we head back to Texas is to take the Natchez Trace from Nashville to Natchez. We had read that it is nice for RV travel since no commercial vehicles (read that: no semi trucks!) are on it and the speed limit is 50 mph. We had also read in another place that it wasn’t good for motor home travel because the trees were too low. There are free campgrounds along the Trace but they don’t have services. One of the campers at Lake Chicot had indicated that they didn’t feel comfortable camping at the campgrounds on the Trace because the other campers were “sketchy”. So, we decided to take a side trip and drive on the Trace a little ways, visit a campground – so we could consider whether we’d want to use this route on our trip back.

We enjoyed the part of the Trace we drove on, and the campground, while basic, did not appear to have sketchy residents to our thoughts. So, we’ll probably check it out on our way back to Texas.

We considered staying at the campground on the Trace, but it was still relatively early in the day, so we decided to press on to eastern Mississippi. There was a Passport America campground that we thought looked promising, but when we got there, there was no place to check in, and no one answered the phone, so we decided to go on. We found another campground via the AllStays app on my phone; after Magnolia (the GPS) took us on a scenic tour of Columbus, MS, we found the address but there was no sign of an RV park, so we decided once again to keep going. We called a park near Tuscaloosa, and he said that he would have space for us; this was one of the parks where I had made reservations for Dwayne as he was driving the Trek back from Virginia. When we drove in the park, Dwayne remembered it – the park where he had stayed was right off the interstate; they have another park a couple of miles away – that’s where they put us. It is basic, but fine for the night.