Breaking Camp Tomorrow

There will be no photos today. You can only take so many photos of tombstones, trees and leaves. We got up at 7AM today and took our coffee "to go" to the laundromat about 10 miles away. We were the only ones there until the owner came in..Let's just say it was interesting..cleaned out tuna tins for ashtrays...need I say more? Dennis helped me move the wet laundry from the front loading washers to the dryers. I tell you that to say this.. when we were folding clothes we each came up with 1 missing sock. Of course he immediately assumed I lost them....that is, until he looked in the 2 washers and found the absent socks stuck to the top inside the drums..and who unloaded those washers, hmmmmm (I tried not to smile).
We loaded up our laundry and went to the Super WalMart for groceries. I was looking for some cross-cut beef ribs but we need to get further South to find them. The WalMart was one of the cleanest we have ever been in. We found a few more items we needed back at camp and went to find diesel fuel.
This town of Grenada is pretty good sized and they have bunch of nice hotels lining the main drag. We were pleased to locate fuel for $2.55 a gallon and filled up. We were so low on fuel when we got here Tuesday that Den had to put the diesel from the 5 gallon can we always carry in the back of the truck...lucky for us we had it!
Tomorrow we leave here and head toward Natchez, MS. I am excited to see the antebellum homes there. We are taking the route that leads us to the Natchez Trace. For those of you who are clueless what that is..it is the main road that was used in the late 1700's and 1800's to take people and their goods from Natchez on the Mississippi River to Nashville.This mad for interesting travel, full of thieves and cutthroats, along with the families that just got off the riverboats. They have made a new road that follows the Trace, and some of the old existing road is still visible along the way. Of course, I will take photos of that. So that is our exciting day...I will blog more Monday afternoon later...after we get back from our day in the wonderful old historic town of Natchez, Mississippi.

An Interesting Find

Well, you know me...once a cemetery girl, always a cemetery girl....As it turns out, there is a really old cemetery just behind campsite #48..and we walked back to it this morning on our daily walk. It is the "Ingram Family" cemetery...Some graves as old as 1870...There were about 12 tombstones and some were very hard to read. I remembered my mom's old trick of taking a piece of paper and rubbing a crayon or pencil over the writing and... it worked like a charm (thanks, mom)...I didn't have my camera with me, so I decided to walk back later and take a few photos.

It sprinkled rain shortly after we got back....We got our coffee, crossword puzzles and sudoku, then vegged out in front of the fireplace most of the morning. After lunch I decided it was time to walk back to the cemetery..I left Dennis at the RV playing solitaire. Also, he managed to catch SOMEONE'S cold. ( I have now succeeded in passing on my cold to all I have come in contact with..Dennis was the last holdout.)
I started out toward site #48.....Have I told you how very quiet this woods is?? I mean DEAD quiet..(sorry, I just couldn't resist). As I approached the old cemetery, I suddenly felt really creepy...I mean, invading a family cemetery could stir up some things I may wish I hadn't. For those of you who remember the movie "Blair Witch Project"..this is the woods and path I walked to the cemetery...
Now I am one who lived in a cemetery almost 10 years of my life and never once saw any spirit or ghost,(despite my sister and myself trying our amateur hands at table tipping and doing Ouija board conjuring).
This little cemetery is surrounded by a barbed wire fence,



















(nice touch, trying to keep me out or THEM in???), with the exception of the entry, which is a broken fence gate (how could one resist?).




















Most of the stones are all grown up with grasses, but there is one fairly large one in the center that had a strange symbol on the top...(photo op..click...I feel like I am part of CSI..Dust for prints, please).Anyway, the stone said, Woodmen of the World Memorial, also some Latin words I had no idea what they meant( my apologies to Dorothy Harrod, our Latin I teacher..also to Jim Curran, my 4 year Latin majoring friend). The name on the stone said,"Sov. Phillip F. Willis"...Now I want to know more about this stone and what in the world kind of title is Sov.? I am assuming it is short for Sovereign.

I was intrigued with this "Woodsmen" organization and pondered it as I trapsed through the leaves and headstones...Many times I am glad we are online back at the camper...I shall have to see if I can find some info..
Well, my work here was done. I had enough of "disturbing the dead", and memories of the day my Dad fell into an old grave and right into the wood casket kept me from exploring any further. I went back to my safe little home and did some research...
Seems that Woodmen Of The World was a life insurance kind of group, started back in the 1800's. Originally, it was started by men who wanted to help widows and children if the man in the family died and left them with nothing. I won't go into details, but if you want a frightening glance into an old fraternal organization who actually DID have a secret handshake..(Not to mention the fact you had to be 18, male and white to join), just google it and read on.
I guess I have bored you enough with my adventures, but hey, I am easily entertained...
Tomorrow is laundry and WalMart day...I love strange laundromats...you never know what you will encounter...Yes, I am VERY easily entertained...Later!!!

Cave's Next Big Adventure

Hello from Grenada Lake Mississippi..We arrived here yesterday afternoon about 2PM but it took us until about 3PM to find a campsite with enough view of the South sky to set up our internet satellite AND our TV satellite. We are very deep into the woods made up of tall pines and oak trees. We are waaaay too technical for camping, but also very spoiled. We actually don't even set up the computer satellite if we are only staying overnight.
We are here until Sunday. We tried to get into Natchez MS State Park for Thanksgiving, but apparently that is the last big camping weekend of the deep South,and it was full of Mississippians.( did I just make that word up?), so we opted to settle here for 5 nights and relax.
I put up my little tinsel tree and did some decorating for the holidays. It gets pretty damn chilly at night, 33 degrees, but warms up to about 60 during the day. They are cutting a lot of pine trees just down our road..We took our walk this AM and watched (from a distance) as they used a neat machine called a tree harvester. At least that's what my tour guide, Dennis, said it was called. Sometimes I think he just makes shit up to make me think he knows everything. At any rate it had a big vertical claw that grabbed the tree trunk, then a saw cut it off about 1 foot from the ground. That machine could haul about 3 trees at a time..and then drop them all at once. I really didn't want to get too close as they crashed through the forest, but it was very cool.This photo is NOT that machine..By the time I went back with my camera, they were done with that one and using,(according to my tour guide), a Log Skidder.
We are going into Grenada Saturday to do some laundry,go to WalMart, and get some fuel. So far the least we have paid for diesel is $2.39 a gallon..much better than Illinois. Then we will leave here Sunday AM for Natchez MS State Park for 3 nites..I plan on doing some touristy sightseeing in Natchez next Monday and will blog my experiences.




















Right now Dennis is using his little electric chain saw and getting ready for our campfire.
It was about 60 degrees today and tomorrow will get to 65. Our Thanksgiving Dinner will be grilled cornish hens, mashed taters with Campbell's wonderful turkey gravy(yes, I AM cheating), stove top whole wheat stuffing(more cheating), canned corn(yet, one more short cut), salad, and the grand finale.....mini Snickers (left over from Halloween) for dessert> Of course, all of this will be preceded by lots of wine and beer!!





















I will close now with one more photo...of our bedroom dresser here in the RV
...note the wonderful pictures of all 4 of our grandchildren!! More later!