Dirt Roads

I am not a planner. By that I mean that I do not make plans for the future, like vacations etc. Which is odd since I am obsessive. I am more of a 'wake up and see what the day is like and then get in the car and drive' sort of person. Which is probably a good thing this summer. So far the trips that I have wanted to make have not happened. I had to postpone the Maine trip because I needed to move and get things settled before I head back to Michigan for the winter.......yes, I know......and, I needed to spend time with family who live here.

But, I AM going to the Grand Canyon next month. I KNOW that I am going and nothing will prevent it this time. I will be taking pics too, and will attempt to put them here. I want to make and album here, but need to get a new digital camera first.

Years ago, before my mother had her stroke, she and I would put my kids in the backseat of my car and go. Every so often one of my brothers would go with us. Sometimes it was just for the day, sometimes a weekend and once for a week. We would take a lunch, or stop at one of the little country stores and buy it. I would start driving till I saw an interesting road, mostly dirt ones, and then drive it as far as I could. We got into some interesting predicaments too. Once,
we were driving out in the western part of Jackson County back around Bluff Creek. I saw a road that looked just like what we wanted. (This time we were in my brother's car) It was muddy and my brother was a little hesitant to go down it. But, pointed out all the tire tracks to show him that since other cars went down it, so could we. So, off we went. About three miles into it his car got stuck. Not just stuck, but really, seriously, insanely stuck. The mud was up on the doors so that we could not open them. He and I had to crawl out the windows. I had told him that if we got stuck that I would walk to find help. This was way out in the sticks and houses were few and far between. He took pity on me, so off we went together. We only had to walk about a half a mile till we got to a house. Turned out that the old woman living there had been my second grade teacher. Oh, and, as we walked, we noticed that all the car tracks were gone. My old teacher called a neighbor of hers who had a tractor and he came and pulled us out. Seems all those car tracks were the cars who had gone in and then had to be hauled out. The guy with the tractor was paid by the county to haul out all the silly people who wanted to go down that road. And, it was a new road, it didn't even go all the way through. It wasn't even close to being finished.

Another time, this same brother was with us. Went were in the northern part of Jackson County heading out to Cedar Creek to go swimming. Just before we got to the Creek, there was a road that angled off behind the Creek. My brother told me to drive down it and we might find a better swimming area. We we in MY car this time. Come to think of it, we never used any of his cars again. Anyway, off I went down what was really no more than a cow path. The bushes kept getting closer and closer and the trail so curvey that my brother got out and sat on the hood of my car to point the direction. We must have gone about three miles before it got too bad even for us. Then, I had to BACK out of it for almost the whole way. We were laughing so that it was hard for me to see. We finally did get to the Creek and spent the rest of the day swimming.

Some of the best trips we made were ones up to northeast Mississippi where my mother and father were born. We went all over Lee and Tishimingo Counties. We stopped and visited family sometimes, but usually we just drove around. Sometimes if we saw an interesting old house....an empty one....we would go through it.

Last time my mother and I went on a trip was to north Mississippi. She had had the first of what was to be several heart attacks and had been out of the hospital for about two weeks. I decided that I might need to take her up there at least one more time. Now, mama had a problem with medicines. She would take the meds her doctor gave her, but she also bought over the counter meds, especially cough medicine. This time she had a big bottle of Vicks Formula 44D and she took what she called 'sups' of it off and on during the day. After awhile I noticed that she was acting a tad bit odd. She was sitting in the front passenger seat and mostly just looked out the window. Then, she would shake her head and wave her hands around like she was talking to someone, shaking her head and sometimes looking rather put out. My first thought was that I had taken her about seven hours away from home and she was haveing another heart attack. Finally, I stopped the car and asked her what was wrong. She looked at me and said that she just felt weird, dizzy-like. Then, it hit me. I asked her how much of the Vicks she had taken. She looked at me, sort of, and said 'well, I took a sup and kept on coughing and took another sup'. I reached over and took the large economy size bottle of Vicks Formula 44D that she had just bought that DAY from her purse. It had maybe two ounces left in it. I held it up and looked at her and then at it. She was stoned! I got her to eat something and she started acting her normal mean ole self. I also kept the Vicks in my purse from then on.

We had so much fun on those silly trips. They would rightly be called 'drives', because that is really what we did. I miss them and I miss my mother. God rest her soul.