Today’s drive took me from Vicksburg, MS to Dyersburg, TN. Was a little trouble getting on the road… Left the hotel early as I was just going to stop somewhere on my way out of Vicksburg and also top off with gas. Initially went wrong way out of the motel parking lot and so had to backtrack a bit to get back on US-61. No big deal. Got on the road and then saw a sign for a Cracker Barrel and as I hadn’t been to one of those in ages, I thought perfect. Took the exit, sign says one mile straight ahead. OK, farther than I wanted, but no big deal. One mile, no Cracker Barrel, two miles nope, 3 miles? OK, screw it I had a big dinner last night and wasn’t all that hungry anyway…

Backtrack, see the sign for the shared US-61\I-20 that I just came off of, great. Oops, not so great they split there I just got on I-20. Son-of-a… Six miles later, turn around, backtrack, ok back on good ol’ US-61! Little annoyed at this point, gotta stop for gas. Oh, I’ll get the next one.

Uh-oh. Again, my lack of planning bits me a bit. Once out of Vicksburg, there is a whole lotta nothing in the northwestern part of Mississippi. The route headed north for a ways and then split off of 61 to a road that parllels the levee. Looking at my remaining mileage, the distance to go and the lack of any significant towns got me a bit nervous. I decided I would stay on 61 as I was certain I’d make the next town with gas that way so I skipped the turn for the real route. Fortunately, just six miles later I hit a gas station. Topped off, and backtracked (again) to get the turn to follow the Great River Road. Glad I did as the backroads were nice. And it turns out I could have made it to a gas station on that route too, but better safe than sorry.

After that it was a more or less routine drive the rest of the way out of Mississippi. But finally some hilly, winding roads for a bit. Crossing the border into Tennessee brought me shortly into Memphis. The route zig zags through downtown Memphis and by either the third or fourth sign I lost track of the signs and the list of turns that I had jotted down, so I eventually I just decided to head north out of the city and find US-51 which would take me the rest of the way to Dyersburg. US-61 joins I-55 and crosses over to Arkansas at Memphis. Leaving Memphis, the Great River Route leaves US-51 for some backroads nearer the river, however as it had been raining most of the day, I opted to just stick with US-51 all the way to Dyersburg. About three o’clock I finally decided I’d stop and grab something to eat since I skipped breakfast. Found a nice BBQ place outside of Munford, TN called Outlaw BBQ. Had their pulled pork with a spicy sauce along with green beans and cole slaw. Taht was tasty!