Twenty years ago, around this time, we did what we had been saying we were going to do for probably 20 years before we did it. We booked a couple of cabins at Tishomingo State Park in celebration of my dad’s, my daughter’s, my nephew’s, and my own birthdays.
Wife Danny and I started camping at the park in Tishomingo County way back when we were living in Clarksdale up in the far northwest corner of the Delta. The 1980s. The mountainous terrain of Tishomingo is a far cry from the flatness of the Delta.
The first time we pulled our little pop-up camper over to the park, I think, we were spending a couple of weeks traipsing around Mississippi. Tishomingo quickly became our favorite destination campground.
This park really is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Delta. Huge rock formations line hiking trails throughout the park and feisty Bear Creek runs slapdab through the middle of everything. A neat swinging bridge built in the 1930s by Civilian Conservation Corps labor connects one bank to the other.
CCC workers also built the stone wall cabins we’d admired since our first trek to that part of the state. For years Danny would try to make a reservation for us in one of the cabins only to be told by a clerk, with a little bit of a laugh, that they were all booked up. All booked up for the year, every year it seemed.
This time, though, we somehow got through and not only booked one but two.
The only problem with Tishomingo, though, is getting there. It’s quite a haul up the Natchez Trace to the tiny town that goes by the same name as the park and the county. And at 50 miles per hour it can be a devilishly mean ordeal if you let it. Especially with me driving.
I drive the speed limit or just slightly over it. Never had a speeding ticket in my life and 65 is not the age to start.
That year much of the Trace remained a terrible reminder of how far inland the damaging effects of Hurricane Katrina were felt. This year I can’t help but wonder what the Trace, and the park, look like following winter storm Fern. Some friends, and business associates of ours in Charleston just got their power back on Sunday. Yes, Sunday. Two weeks without anything except a wood-burning fireplace to huddle around during some pretty cold weather. Charleston isn’t even as far north as Tishomingo, and from what little I’ve seen the park was hit pretty hard.
Back in 2006 we finally got to our little cabin in paradise and got everything unpacked from inside, on top, and tied to the back of the truck and then it rained. Friday night’s flood led to a clear crisp Saturday, though a little too breezy at times, and we all braved the swinging bridge to hit the trails on the other side of the creek.
The rain the night before had the Bear flowing fast and furiously and sparkling waterfalls spilled over large rock formations into all the tiny tributaries along her banks.
I wrote about our trip back then and said that we even saw a nice size cottonmouth moccasin wash out from beneath a log but that the cold weather wasn’t allowing him to move about too much so we all just stepped over him and headed along our merry way. We got to step back over him on the return from our merry way as well. I wouldn’t have remembered all these facts, I don’t think, had I not run across the column while doing some research which got me to wondering about the park and what Fern might have done ironically almost 20 years to the date after observing what Katrina had done.
Mother Nature can be cruel sometimes.
The snake, though, was about the extent of the excitement at Tishomingo that year. That’s the way it’s always been up there. Quiet, peaceful, natural.
Unfortunately, although our appetite for a Tishomingo cabin had been whetted for some 20 years, it ended up not being exactly what we had expected. They were, may still be, very, very rustic. We knew that, but they were also quite small and poorly equipped in the kitchen and not the cleanest cabins we had ever stayed in. Just old, I suppose and that is part of the experience.
The “large” two-room cabins that slept six really only accommodated four comfortably. Put 10 in the living room in front of a roaring fire and you begin to feel a little bit cramped.
Fortunately it is not the accommodations that make a trip, it is the people, and for all of us, I think, our trip to Tishomingo and back on the big Birthday Express was a huge success.
I suppose we may need to try booking one of those cabins again before long and see what Fern did to the beautiful landscape of that far away place. I’m sure it was beautiful wrapped in ice, but hopefully the woods are not stripped bare and the hiking trails remain some of the most scenic anywhere in Mississippi.
I’ll let you know when, and if, we go. Regardless, though, if you’ve never been there I highly recommend that you go.
Just remember that it is a long, slow, ride!
