Faith, Folklore, and Friends

I have been to numerous restaurants who claim to have the South's best catfish.   This place nailed it. The restaurant's parking lot is bigger than the rest of the town. They don't do reservations.  No matter who you are, you have to wait on the porch until there is room for you. We were there on Thursday when the doors opened at five, and didn't have to wait but a few minutes.

On our day trip Wednesday, we poked around Booneville, Mississippi, for a while, then started home.  We were not paying attention, and missed the turn onto Highway 365 that would take us to Highway 72.  We turned on the GPS (Missy) to help us get back on the right road.  Missy routed us through a county road that wasn't even paved.  It was very narrow, but thankfully, we didn't meet any vehicles going the other way.  Hub was worried that the branches near the road would put a scratch on his Jeep.  We were not happy with Missy at all until we came around a sharp curve and saw this.  I saw the nest first, then Hub saw the eagle .  It sat there, without moving, not caring that we had stopped to stare.  I'm sure it didn't identify us as a threat to whatever it was guarding in the nest. Hub kept seeing something white in the nest.  I shot this with the best lens I had with me, but I still can't tell if it is a little one or ju...

Yesterday, Hub and I went for a ride to see wildflowers.  We went south on the Natchez Trace Parkway, then to Booneville, Mississippi, then home on Highway 72. The wildflowers were not hard to find; in fact, they were everywhere we looked.  I blogged about mayapple  here. Purple trillium and purple grape hyacinths. They are small, but smell so good! This butterfly found the wild phlox before I did. When I was a child, we called these wild Sweet Williams.  We always picked them and carried them home for bouquets.  Maybe that is why I am not bothered with allergies as much as some people are. We saw much more than wildflowers. . .

The story goes that the people in this little Mississippi Delta town were excited that President Theodore Roosevelt were coming to go hunting.  They wanted to make sure that he got a bear, so they caught one and tied it up for the President to shoot.  The President refused to shoot it, and the ensuing media attention led to the creation of the Teddy Bear. The Onward Store and Restaurant keeps the story alive. The Onward Store is on the Blues Highway, Highway 61 just north of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

A different kind of beauty. . . . Cypress Swamp is at milepost 122, between Jackson and Tupelo, Mississippi.