The Voyage Home Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

At about Midnight (and finally back in the Central Time Zone), I crossed into Mississippi. I noticed on the sign that it said ‘Birthplace of America’s Music’ and just rolled my eyes for a moment. Blues has a LOT of roots in the State of Mississippi but, it started in the Mississippi River Delta. That is in the State of Louisiana, thank you very much. And while we’re at it, New Orleans also gave birth to Jazz and is one of the cities that gave birth to Rock’N’Roll. As much as I love the Magnolia State, Mississippi did NOT do it all alone. Let’s give the credit to where it’s actually due.

After crossing the state line, I looked for a rest stop. After about a mile or so, I found a really nice one. It was probably the nicest of all the rest stops I had come across that night. I took the opportunity to relieve myself, stretch and text friends and relatives about my progress before hitting the road again. I didn’t care if it was 1 or 2 in the morning at all. I was so damned close to home!

That being said, Mississippi did not go quite as smoothly as the other states. I decided to stop for gas again and went looking for a Chevron or Texaco station with my Garmin. Chevron and Texaco have Techron in their gas, which helps keep your injectors clean. I prefer to avoid cheap, no name brand gasoline where possible because it’s full of ethanol. Ethanol and my truck don’t like each other. And after all the times I had to fill up on cheap gas along the way, I figured it was time to treat my truck to something good for once. This led me into a small town called Enterprise, Mississippi.

Enterprise...

I had read about this town on Wikipedia ages ago for some reason, probably because there’s a town called ‘Enterprise’ in Louisiana and Alabama as well. The one in Alabama is the home to Fort Rucker, the home of Army Aviation. All the Helicopter pilots train there. The other two aren’t known for much of anything, as far as I know. Also, being a life-long Trekkie, I found this town’s name to be, as Spock would say, ‘Fascinating’…

The town of Enterprise, Mississippi was way off the beaten track. It was so off the beaten track that my Garmin got really confused and had me driving all over the town looking for a Texaco. It took me at least a half hour to find the place in a small town with a population of less than 500. What happened? Was the Garmin getting tired too?

When I did find it in their downtown area, the place was brand new and surprisingly modern. The only other major businesses I saw in their downtown were a dollar store and a Piggly Wiggly supermarket. I hadn’t seen one of those in nearly 20 years. I thought they had gone out of business. So, I fill up again and spend the next 15 minutes or so getting back to the Interstate. Once there, I start the trip home again in earnest... And at some VERY unsafe velocities...

TO BE CONTINUED...