From our campsite in Saulsbury, about 60 miles east of Memphis, we decided to do our exploring around a loop northwest of here. Tennessee terrain is quite a bit more lumpy than the flat lands in Louisiana and Mississippi and we were more delighted than we thought we would be to finally see some rock cliffs and limestone outcroppings. There are still plenty of swampy spots but mostly the ground around here is hills with small creeks at the bottom or magnificent flat pastures filling hundreds of acres.
Kudzu, a nasty, invasive plant imported from Japan by some idiot has established a foothold in large portions of forest here. It is a vine with big leaves and it spreads like flu throughout large portions of forest. The vines spread everywhere and then the plants’ big leaves shade out everything beneath them and kill all the trees, shrubs and grass. Large expanses of ground can be seen along the roads where kudzu has killed everything. The locals wade into these areas, clear cut all plants to the ground salvaging the logs and killing the nasty invader. Too bad they haven’t convinced the government it is a crop so they could get a subsidy for not growing it.
We wandered through towns with names like Hickory Valley, Bolivar, Montezuma and Middleton and they are all pretty tiny and look like they did back in the early 1900’s. We spotted what we thought was a steam engine but it ended up being a sassafras mill, whatever that is. There were truly magnificent brick and wood buildings along with some Dogpatch-like areas that we sort of expected to see here. The Dogpatches appear to be acreage where the owner has retained every single item he has ever acquired without discarding anything. Sometimes their funky little house is visible from the road where there is a gap in the junk.
We stopped in at Chickasaw State Park near Bolivar. Tennesseens have done it right; their parks are pretty, very well-maintained and free to those doing day-use. Camping costs but it is cheap. There are lots of animals about. There’s lakes with snazzy walkways and cabins and absolutely clean restrooms, unlike the state parks we have in California. The big hardwood forest covering this part of Tennessee is gorgeous except where the kudzu grows.
We got a few photos. Click here