We woke up to the sound of the wind and the highway and mooched around the site a litte depressed despite the bright sunshine until I had an idea.
“Let’s blow this joint and head ‘er for Mississippi.”
We unplugged the electric line and the water line and put everything away in its compartment and trundled out onto the pulsating six lane that was busy even on a Sunday morning in December.
Not for the first time in America, I wondered where on earth everyone was going. We flowed along at 40 miles an hour, stopping for lights every five hundred yards or so. Highway 98 West is essentially a three hundred mile Portland St. After about ten miles we found a highway going north and suddenly everything quietened down to the extent that a couple of miles down the road, we had to stop to let a sleek wet otter run across in front of us, heading from the ocean into some trees on the other side.
After another while we hit the I10. We spent most of the day on it, cruised through Pensicola and then into Alabama. Through Mobile, where it became a 10 lane freeway through the centre of the city pretty much and then shortly afterwards, hit the Mississippi state line and pulled off for a burger at a little place called Moss Point..
I was halfway through my Whopper when Himself pointed out the window at the cowboy boot store across the road.
It was a treasure trove beyond imagination for stencils and tooling-work-loving ladies like me. And that was just the mens’ boots. The womens’ boots glittered with diamante inserts, flowers made of mirrors and leather petals stained pale pink or lavender or rose. There were boots for work; boots for church; boots for dancing; ankle boots; knee boots; boots with a delicate 2” heel and flat, thick-soled ones. They came in every possible shade of brown through grey. The alligator skin boots were soft as Uggs. Handmade. The sheen off them was perfect. The fit sublime.
The two young women working there figured out my size and urged me on. It was quiet in there anyway. I tried on a pair of alligator skin half height curved tops with a low heel.
‘Y’all can wear them with a nice dress to church, or tuck your jeans into them if you’re going dancing”, one of the girls said.
They were made for me. I strutted around a bit. They oohed and aahed.
I looked at the price tag.
I thought about the weather in Nova Scotia. The salt. The rain.
I backed out of the store with a pair of ‘dancing jeans, boot cut’ but no boots.
I’m still inconsolable.
But there’s enough diamantes pasted onto the back of my new jeans to ensure my ass will at least sparkle brightly in the late spring snows of Canada.
We got back on the highway and cruised west past Biloxi and then Gulfport, where we turned north onto a brand new highway with a dedicated cycle lane on both sides. We were back in pine country.
We turned into the state park at one minute to five and the ranger was not impressed.
“I been here ALL DAY BY MYSEL’ and now y’all turn up when it’s going home time.”
I turned on my most apologetic Canadian sorries until she let us stay on a promise that we would pay in the morning. I asked about firewood.
“Ma’am, we all stop selling firewood here at THREE O’CLOCK.
I apologised profusely for not knowing that irrefutable truth. As I headed out the door, the phone rang and she raged at it instead of me. As I got into the RV, I could see another one approaching.
Busy night.
It was warm enough to sit outside without a fire in any case. We watched the dusk fall over a small lake and when it was too dark to see anymore I found Mississippi Public Radio and listened to the Blues and Beebop Christmas special while I cooked the last of the Georgia pork chops and then they played an hour of obscure Irish and Scottish traditional music hosted by a wonderful Welsh woman whose name escapes me now. I drifted off to sleep in a womb of fiddles and flutes and dreamed about Irish folk I knew all night.
Tomorrow we go to Natchez to camp along the banks of the Mississippi river.
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