Cannonball Express

Ned here again. We headed out of Davy Crockett State Park this morning with out sites set on Jackson, Tennessee, the home of Casey Jones. Debi had warned me for several days that she thought the Casey Jones Village might very well be a serious tourist trap, and that I shouldn't get my hopes up. I assured her that I liked trains, and that a trip to a silly museum sounded like fun. I even researched the ballad of Casey Jones for her, which is why Casey is still known today, and we offer the best rendition here for your listening pleasure.click here for the balladWe noticed a theme, however, in the personalities of the three folk heroes (Ty Cobb, Davy Crockett, and Casey Jones) whom we had seen honored in the last three days. Like the other two, Casey seems to me like a very head-strong sort, with an aggressive streak that bordered on psychotic. The museum makes a big deal about what a hero he was to have died while saving the lives of all the passengers during his famous 1900 train crash, while he was at the controls. What is obvious to even the casual observer, is that the damn train never would have crashed in the first place if he hadn't been fanatically driving it way too fast to make up for lost time. The side benefit of the museum stop was that we ate lunch at one of the little cafeteria style buffets in the cutesy little store across from the museum. This included very authentic southern cooking items of fried chicken, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, and corn bread. This being a Sunday afternoon, it turns out that LOTS of locals eat here after church, so we were treated to some excellent people-watching of everyone parading through in their Sunday finest. Soon we were headed out of Tennessee and across the Mississippi River, into Missouri. We were interested to see how the "boot heal" of Missouri looked, but found it to be very flat agricultural land, covered with rice, corn, or wheat fields, and looking very much like some of the farm land in Central California. One surprise in this area was to drive into the little town of Kennett, which proclaims itself to be the hometown of Sheryl Crow, the singer. Heading north toward our present location, we enjoyed the rolling and heavily wooded hills as we entered Missouri's Ozark region. We're camped tonight in a really nice campground where we we able to cool off this afternoon in the rather shallow, but refreshing clear creek that runs through the park. Our campground is being serenaded by tree loads full of cicadas with their sometimes almost deafening roar. Debi is a bit grossed out by the hundreds of dead cicada carcasses that liter the ground. The Ozarks are never boring! See today's pics - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Sam Baker State Park