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Back to Memphis...
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Back in Memphis, after a longish drive from Starkville due to detouring through a National Forest to check out the habitat. We took Highway 15 for most of the drive to Memphis and went through town after town of near-abandoned town squares (stores shuttered, the grass brown and weedy), with Confederate monuments decorated with artificial flowers. And cemetery after cemetery (ditto decorated), not to mention Walmarts on the outskirts of these towns, draining the life out of the downtowns. It was a relief to get to Memphis, with its bustle and variety and, yes, money. The downtown is alive with tourists and people going to the numerous good restaurants, but it's still in the process of being gentrified, not fully occupied. And heat envelopes you like a warm bath every time you venture outside.
Perhaps the biggest surprise about Mississippi has been how verdant it looks. I look out the window and see a landscape so green, so lush, that I can't believe it can be 96 degrees outside. In California, landscape that green means spring and cool. We saw evidence of a tornado today in one small town--the roof of a church collapsed, the steeple lying on its side.
Jerry is being driven insane by slow drivers on two-lane roads, maddened by it, but I get it completely: moving fast in any way is just too hot here. I may start to drawl.
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