Wandering Mississippi Wonders looking for zero people

NOTE: We are about two weeks behind in posting our blogs. As things are changing quickly in our country because of the COVID-19 pandemic, please understand that some of our activities and decisions would be different if they happened on the day the blog was actually published.

Many of the days that we are camped at our repair shop, we have to stay close by. It reminded us of being at a hospital with a sick relative, and waiting for hours in the room to be sure you don't miss the unscheduled times that the doctor arrives. We've been waiting for our RV repairman, and now we are waiting for an inspector. We have to stay close by because we don't want to miss the unscheduled times when they arrive. Remember that we arrived several days before our appointment so they could get all the authorizations from our warranty company. But for some reason, our repairman didn't contact the warranty company right away. When he finally called, they wanted an inspector to substantiate all our repairs as necessary. So now we wait another couple days for the inspector to arrive. Then they will have to work us in with other appointments at the repair shop, since it will be past the dates we booked months ago. Sheesh!

The good news is that now we have a day to wander! During this time, the states of Mississippi and Alabama have few coronavirus cases--especially in this isolated corner of the states. Even though we are isolating, we are free to travel from place to place because there are no state-wide travel bans. Within this lightly populated area, we are finding that it's easy to find places with zero people on this nice blue-sky day.

We parked the car, and headed up an old paved road that hasn't seen auto traffic for years. The trees are putting on their spring leaves, and we love finding an occasional dogwood tree in bloom.

These lovely white blossoms appear close to Easter, and we love to be in regions where they thrive in the spring.

We're hiking up to the Divide Overlook. We're not sure what is divided and what we are overlooking, but we can tell that the viewing point is rarely used. Trees are now hiding most of the view of the water below.

That was a nice hike in beautiful weather, and the number of people seen was zero. But the real reason we are in this area was to go bike riding. Mark found a biking trail that started beside the Holcut Memorial. We learned that the tiny town of Holcut, Mississippi, was founded in the valley below us in 1907. But the memorial states that the town was "sacrificed to progress for the construction of the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway in 1976." We can see that new waterway behind Mark and that rock memorial. The number of people we saw here--zero.

Not far from that memorial, we found a family cemetery in a field of violets. It is the final resting place for dead citizens from a dead town.

We unloaded the bicycles and took off on the trail that runs all along the ridge overlooking the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.

We found a walking trail down to the water, where adjoining creeks flow down man-made culverts in sheets.

This is a carefully controlled waterway, with straight rock banks, and cemented culverts to bring the surrounding creeks together in an orderly fashion. It's not as naturally picturesque as other waterways we have enjoyed.

After four miles, we turned our bikes around and headed back to the parking lot. It was a nice level trail, and good exercise. Again the number of other bikers on the trail was zero.

It was another good quarantine activity. We headed back to the trail head to eat our picnic lunch, and noticed a nest setting on a tall post beside the water.

It looks like a pair of ospreys are sitting on eggs. We saw one bird fly in, but the second stayed sitting on the nest the entire time we watched.

It's only a picture of the top of the osprey, but it will have to do for the wildlife picture of the day. We can report that the number of people sharing that bird view with us was zero.

We took another short hike and once again the number we saw on the trail was--you guessed it--zero. Our next stop of the day, was a lovely view of Bay Springs Lake. This is the lake that the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway flows in and out of.  If we hadn't already taken two hikes and a bike ride, we would have put our kayak on this neck of the lake on this beautiful blue sky day.

On our driving loop back to the repair shop, we drove a few miles on the Natchez Trace Parkway. The clover on the side of the road is blooming in that striking color of crimson. This road stretches 444 miles--all the way from southern Mississippi to past Nashville, Tennessee. Four years ago we drove much of this scenic by-way in our motor home. It's another good place to spend some time when you want to see zero people.

On our last hike of the day, we found lots of the seed balls that fall from some of the big trees. We must have seen too many coronavirus news updates, because those balls couldn't help but remind us of the virus picture we have seen so many times on television. It's a reminder of the reason that we are social distancing.

We needed a break from the repair shop, and we're just glad that we have the opportunity to wander in Mississippi and still keep our social distance. We'll be glad when we don't have to look for activities with zero people in attendance!