A Home Run
ON THE ROAD AGAIN, Days 26 & 27:
Longview, TX to Home
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Before leaving Texas on Sunday morning, we stopped to find a few more letterboxes, finally reaching Shreveport around 10 a.m. We hopped on I-20 and sped across northern Louisiana. No distractions slowed our pace as we had already found letterboxes near the route on previous adventures.
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Vicksburg, Mississippi was another story. After crossing the familiar Vicksburg bridge across the Mississippi River (pictured above), we detoured to Cedar Hill Cemetery, where we found several letterboxes. We were not the only visitors to the cemetery on this Sunday afternoon. A gathering of vultures was in full swing as we searched. Oddly, a gathering of vultures is called a 'wake.' Does that mean they always congregate in cemeteries (or near funeral homes)?
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| You don't bother us, and we won't interfere with you. |
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| A wake of vultures at Cedar Hill Cemetery |
Our final night out of the trip was in Meridian, Mississippi, and on Monday morning, we set the tiller toward home. Before we could get there, we made a stop at a long-delayed destination that happened to be near our path—Alabama's Moundville Archaeological Park.
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| A Moundville mound |
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| Reconstructed Mississippian building at Moundville |
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Located along the Black Warrior River near present-day Tuscaloosa, the site has been extensively studied and has been identified as the political and ceremonial center of a regionally organized culture of the Mississippian period, active between the 11th and the 16th centuries.
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Rain caught up with us in Tuscaloosa, just after we found a letterbox at the former site of an apartment complex destroyed by the April 2011 tornadoes. That was the only hint we needed. We dropped our other boxing plans and hopped onto I-20, managing to stay ahead of the weather system most of the way home.
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SUNDAY, 1 DECEMBER—MONDAY, 2 DECEMBER 2013
