THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Tishomingo State Park, Mississippi

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

After a long day on the Natchez Trace, we needed a place to park Tana and get some rest.  We pushed pretty hard and too late, ended up pulling into Tishomingo State Park about 4:15 or so.  (It got fully dark about 1 hour later.)

Let me tell you this park is one of the prettiest we have ever been in, it is one fine piece of real estate.  And, if you think this is pretty, I did not even get photos of the really good stuff.  Seriously.

This view was right in front of our campsite:

Below is a shot of one of the campsites, note, the sharp drop off of the concrete pad to the dirt.  There were campsites that the drop off was well over 10 inches, ankle busters for sure.  There were some concrete pads where there was no land or rock or anything under the back couple of feet of the concrete.  The utility poles were so close to the pads that we could not open Tana's main slide without hitting the pole.  Many of the sites were up hill, and not all had this nice concrete, many were full of gravel, many were blind side back in sites, Man really growls when he has a blind side back in site. Many of the sites were too short for Tana and Jolly.  (The disclaimer:  we are fully aware that many national and state parks are just not set up for rigs our size, we are long, it is one of the reasons we rarely go into national or state parks, but along the Trace, you choices of campgrounds are few, you take what there is.)

We attempted 3 or 4 sites before we found one that worked out.  Of course, it was a up hill battle, a blind side back in and it was getting dark, and there was this little issue of a culvert, which made backing up a bit "interesting":

Man tells me that Jolly's front tires were over the edge of the road and he was praying he would not get stuck.  Yes, Jolly has 4 wheel drive, but, something about being on pavement and some racketing and I don't know what else (and frankly, I DO NOT want to know, ehhh??  somethings are just better NOT known!).  Anyway, he backed up sans 4 wheel and managed to not get stuck, but, had a bit of elevated heart rate for an hour or so.

We finished parking in the dark, I was using the cell phone to illuminate Tana's levels.  There were no lights, street or otherwise.  It was VERY dark. Ya know, there were critters out there rustling the leaves too, we want to believe the critters were deer, but, at the front of the park there is a statue of a black bear.  You can take that thought process from there without my assistance!

And, here we are the next AM just before we pulled out.  After all that work it was kinda a shame we could not stay longer and enjoy this beautiful landscape.  But, whew, Mississippi, if this is the shape of your premier flag ship park, I am not sure I want to see the infrastructure of other parks. The real estate you own, stunning, the campsites, sad (for the big rigs).

Driving the Natchez Trace, so worth it.  But finding campsites with Tana, a big rig, makes for rough landings at night.  The next day's landing, even worse.  Unbelievable, but true.

Next up, some more of our ride on the quiet, beautiful, enchanting, 444 mile long Natchez Trace Parkway, a quiet jewel in America's long list of parks, monuments, and special places.





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