We got up this morning fully intending to eat breakfast in our Barbarian Invader but we ended up voting, 2 – 0, to instead go to a local bakery called Crave in downtown Tupelo. According to the internet, Crave has been the recipient of many awards for their pastries and, based on the bacon biscuit and ham and chive scone we had for our morning meals, the awards went to the right folks. We were also undisciplined because we also got something called a skillet cookie which was very tasty and surely very bad for our health. It is a big (8”?) cookie in a ceramic pan with ice cream, chocolate and caramel drizzled over the top.
Across the street from Crave is the Tupelo courthouse and out in front there is a statue with a marble woman in a toga on a pedestal emblazoned with a plaque to temperance and the 1903 complete prohibition of alcohol in Tupelo. The statue has had her right hand lopped off, probably due to her views about drinking. Serves her right.
We then stopped in at Tupelo Hardware to purchase a replacement room heater for our trailer because the old heater made a funny noise and quit. According to the salesman who provided service to us, Elvis got his first guitar in Tupelo Hardware but there seems to be some confusion about what happened. According to our salesman, there was a long sequence of bikes, rifles, guitars, poverty and, surprisingly, explosive diarrhea involved in the mystery of the guitar. When Elvis was alive I saw many recordings of his performances and, although I saw him swing a guitar around and dance about with a guitar, I never saw him play one. When I mentioned to the salesman that it was unfortunate that such a stellar performer would end up croaking on the crapper with a hit of Dilaudid hanging out of his arm, he gave me a funny look. Not long after hearing the extended Elvis and the Tupelo Hardware guitar stories, we drove a few blocks to Elvis’s boyhood home which was quite small, but tidy.
The remainder of the day we spent traversing the section of the Natchez Trace between Jeff Busby at about milepost 195 up to Tupelo which must be at around milepost 260. A good portion of the Trace in this section passes within the confines of the Tombigbee National Forest. It is a bit higher than the Trace south of Jeff Busby but the wildflowers alongside the road are still spectacular. The dogwoods are blooming and they are gorgeous. We have not seen a lot of animals along the Trace, except birds, to date. Weird.
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