days 1 and 2:
We’re on our second day here in mississippi and its been a serious game-changer. We’ve spent the least amount of time on paved roads here so far than any other state reaching this point. A lot of logging roads, two track, and back country stone road.

This has also been the first point on the trip that has felt like we were “getting somewhere” on these back roads. The first portion, and a lot of tennessee just felt like we were zigzagging back and fourth across a designated highway. We crossed almost no highways through mississippi.
We came into mississippi at the same time as a heat wave, prior to this trip I don’t believe I truly understood just how humid this state is either since I’d only been here in the winter before. Its quite unpleasant, I believe the humidity last night was 90%…hooowww is that even possible?
-Rob

Day 3
Slept covered in sweat, woke up covered in sweat. I am going to remember this state for its humidity and its mosquitos.
We spent the night In the nicest camp ground I’ve ever seen, at Enid Dam, it was clearly much more of a retirement home than a camp ground. With little old people smiling and waving while zipping by on golf carts to go live the rest of thier lives in thier RVs bigger than the last house I lived in.
A good portion of today was on pavement unfortunately. All country road which was beautiful but becoming fairly tedious. A LOT of this state is infected with kudzu, an invasive plant that has very literally devoured much of the countryside, creeping over everything in its path until the only things you see are lumps of vine where there used to be a field, a stop sign, or a telephone pole. Chelsea said that it looks almost magical, like there is a sleeping giant underneath the kudzu thats going to one day wake up and shake off its blanket of vines.

There were a couple of highlights that made it worth the day. One being a decent amount of sand driving, which feels more like a controlled slide than it does actually driving. My personal favorite is a very short portion of farm road, the instructions on the roll chart simply state “turn right at power lines and gravel.”

We drove about four miles on top of a levee as well that was pretty gnarly. There are some points that a much larger and heavier truck has dug deep grooves into the road that my little samurai would not fit into, and had to navigate my way across carefully. Keeping a trench between my tires without either falling off the side, or into the other trench.

Of course Mississippi was ended in a bang and a crossing of the great river! On a road that felt like it might as well have been off road, we hit a couple of bumps that could have launched us right over the side.