The Journey Back

After my blues trip took me from Texas through Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee, and from there down to Jackson, Mississippi, I thought that the journey back would be a bit of an anti-climax, particularly since Interstate-20 accounts for almost all of the 400 miles to Dallas. Interstate highways are great to get you where you want to go quickly, if you don’t mind the boredom of endless driving punctuated only by the occasional truck stop.

Whenever a major highway crosses a state line, there is always a tourist information centre close at hand. So, when I entered Louisiana, I pulled into one. I asked them, as I often do, “If you only had one day in the state, what would be the one place you’d have to visit?” And, again as usual, they were stumped. But I noticed on the huge map on the desk that Route 80 shadowed I-20 all the way across Louisiana, and passed through all the small towns. This held much more promise, and, in spite of a longer journey, I side-stepped onto Rte 80 at the first available opportunity.

Tallulah mural

"Expect the Unexpected"

I have a particular penchant for collecting murals. Every small town seems to have at least one, though sometimes you have to search carefully for them. I found one in the first town I encountered, Tallulah. I also found a very aptly named beauty shop. Rte 80 follows the railroad, which is no great surprise, because this is how these towns came to be here in the first place. And many of the towns are in a state of neglect – I’d never really thought about it before, but I imagine that this is the result of the town being bypassed by the highways. Motels, cafés, shops and gas-stations for whom through-traffic was once the lifeblood have been boarded up one by one until the town is sucked dry, devoid of their livelihood. The coin of progress is definitely two-sided.

Mural in Delhi

From Tallulah, the road took me through Delhi, which, despite its dereliction, sported the quite avant-garde Anding Thompson Plaza, complete with mural, in its centre.

The next town was Rayville, the “White Gold Capital of the South”. White gold is otherwise known as cotton. Here I found an interesting mural that looked almost chalk-like, enticingly labeled “Riddle 97”. Since Riddle seems to be a local name, I think that this refers to the artist, rather than being an invitation to solve some carefully concealed puzzle.

Chalk mural in Rayville

Barber shop in Start

Soon after Rayville, I encountered Start, the home of “Country Music Great Tim McGraw”. Whatever you might think of Tim McGraw (assuming you’ve heard of him) or country music, he has the enviable distinction of being married to another country singer, Faith Hill. However, I don’t think he gets his hair cut locally.

It was near here that I encountered a road-side fruit stand, and stopped to buy a deliciously ripe cantaloupe. $2.50, but I gave them $3 on condition that I could take a photograph (and they were more than happy to oblige).

Fruit stand st the roadside

 Beyond Monroe, the landscape is very much more built up, and not as sparsely populated as the eastern half of the state. At the gambling capital of Shreveport, I crossed back on to I-20 to complete the journey to Dallas.

Small town America is still one of my favourite places to visit, even if I think I might not actually want to live there. With mobile phones, wireless internet, and the onslaught of technology, it may not be around for too much longer.

PS. In case you’re interested, the larger murals are composed of, typically, five or six separate photographs “stitched” together using the free autostich package, available from http://www.photo-freeware.net/autostitch.php.