A Trip to Little Mountain Before the Apocalypse -- A 3/12/20 Pre-Lockdown Travelogue

I've ruined my knee. It turns out, when you've turned the tendons in your leg into tendon'ts, you probably shouldn't then immediately run a marathon on said tendont's. Yes, tendon'ts. There's more where that came from.
I ran a marathon in January two days after severely injuring my knee, and running 26.2 miles on my knee instead of staying off of it for a month now means I'll be in physical therapy for far more than a month.
"But Mr. Physical Therapist Man..." I asked, "Can I still go on a gentle hike in this condition?"
"As long as you're not running or squatting, or carrying excess weight. And also, please take it easy. Please. Please take it easy. I'm begging you. I will pay you to take it easy."
Last year, running helped me get out of a major depressive episode, organize some messy thought patterns, get in better shape than I've probably ever been, and think about some things I've hidden in my "don't open" mental box. Running was the best therapy, along with the therapy from my actual therapist. From early October 2019, to the Louisiana Marathon on January 19, 2020, I had been running 30 miles a week. Then I hurt my knee, haven't run since I crossed the finish line, and also my therapist phoned to tell me she was calling it quits to be a stay at home mom.
Awesome! I guess I'll just figure something else out!
Thankfully, I've been doing pretty well, and though I can barely walk up a flight of steps, I can at least comfortably go up the steps in my mind. Still, I've needed some type of physical exercise outside of taking my dog for a walk (which is only satisfying for my dog) and physical therapy stretches (which aren't satisfying for my dog), so I started mapping out a "take it easy" hike.
While I generally try to visit every hidden nook in the great state of Louisiana, this time I decided I'd drive a little further to America's musty pubic patch, Mississippi.
And now to put the GRAPHIC in Geographic:
Yes, Louisiana is America's proud anus, Mississippi its pubes, and Florida its penis. If the last 244 years of history have proven anything, it is that America is definitely a boy, but with a simple operation, vis-à-vis, chopping off Florida and letting it float into the sea, and preferably, drown, we could change things. Sorry, Florida, but you know what you did! Subconsciously, America knows this needs to happen--otherwise we'd actively try to stop climate change.
I found a trail that looked both easy and rewarding, called Little Mountain near Eupora in North Mississippi. The trail looked like maybe a five-hour drive away, but considering it's situated upon the second highest point in Mississippi and contains some beautiful vistas, I decided it was worth a nearly 1/4 of a day drive away from the proud anus...I mean, swamp.
However, as the day of the hike drew near, I began to hear rumors of doom. Let me just say--they aptly named this thing. There's a reason they didn't call it the Guinness Virus. Corona beer, brewed by Pepé Le Pew, is only preferable to drink when the other choice is the contents of a Coachella port-a-potty. I'm sorry this is so scatological, but as, like most of society, I've washed my hands 68 million times in the last couple weeks, while constantly mentally counting my toilet paper, my mind is just going to the germs. What kind of germs are in a Coachella port-a-potty? Are there so many, the mixture comes back around to being clean to drink again? Like when you mix all the colors of your crayons together and get black, do you just get "no germs?" I'm sure some kid has tried to make #CoachellaPortaPottyChallenge a thing on TikTok. Sorry it hasn't caught on, kid. I'm sure when aliens land here millions of years from now, and find nothing living but cockroaches and our rich digital record, they'll hail you as a hero and a visionary. #CoachellaPortaPottyChallenge kid: 2004-2020.
Anyway, on the morning of Thursday, March 12, 2020, I woke up at 5 am, showered, then headed toward Little Mountain Trail, Mississippi. Thankfully, at 5 am, the Circle K had Twix Milk.
Twix Milk! Twix Milk? Twix Milk. Twix Milk tastes exactly like someone liquefied a Twix until it had the consistency of milk, which I'm...okay with? Okay with! Okay with.

Thanks to daylight savings time, the sun never came up that day...or at least, the sun didn't come up for a very long while. By then, I was far past the Mississippi border. You can tell you've crossed into Mississippi when every town along the interstate looks like a tour stop for Emmet Otter's Jug-Band.
At that moment, despite my great love for the night, I was reminded why I always get Gryffindor on those Pottermore quizzes--the sunrise brought me to life even more than the Twix Milk. How would one milk a Twix anyway? Does a Twix have teats? I must have driven through the darkness for hours because by that point, I'd made it to the Natchez Trace Parkway.

For those who don't know, Natchez Trace gained the name because of a local art school that taught a "cheating" method of drawing. The school was actually shut down by Leonardo Da Vinci, with assistance from the U.S. military, after he discovered that many of his more popular works were being plagiarized by the school. However, Da Vinci, moved by the Mississippi citizens' lack of actual drawing skills, donated a great sum so that a highway could be built, allowing residents to travel more freely, and gain better educations. Little known fact: the Mona Lisa was painted in Jackson, Mississippi.
The Natchez Trace is a beautiful, well-paved highway, which runs almost exclusively through woodlands, when it's not snaking along stunning reservoir shorelines. That sentence felt strangely sexual.





I kept pulling over at all of the "vista" stops, but soon realized that I was going to run out of time unless I got on the road and got to Little Mountain Trail--I had to pick up my son from school all the way back in Baton Rouge by 5 pm. I also started to worry that I was going to run out of gas, too, because there's absolutely no civilization visible beyond the woody walls of the Natchez Trace Parkway. Also, the recent violent storms that raged through Tennessee must have torn through Natchez Trace, as well, because a three-mile-stretch looked like Northern France during WWI. Thank goodness Da Vinci was in the U.S. during the war, or we would have never gotten the Sistine Chapel.



I finally reached the turnoff for Little Mountain Trail, smack dab in the middle of the woods, and drove up to the trailhead, which actually starts at the top of Little Mountain. You'd think an eight-thousander like Little Mountain would show more respect for its peak, but built and siting right there at the second highest point in Mississippi is the same thing you ask Cleetus for the key to when you stop at the Texaco.
That actually worked out for me, as I'd just sat in my car for nearly five hours, and had to go/Where it flushes to, don't no one know/pipe gone downhill, and how it flow/darkest of depths, winds ancient blow/bowels of the earth, where mushrooms grow.
After doing what Bachman-Turner Overdrive told me to do, I decided to check out Little Mountain's proud vistas. Not bad.

After all that excitement, I found the start of the trail. Little Mountain Trail is as short and sweet as a chocolate Muggsy Bogues, and it too can block Patrick Ewing. Confident that I wouldn't be attacked by a wild Patrick Ewing, I set forth upon the trail, which gently descends Little Mountain, passing several pint-sized waterfalls, which tinkled happily along through the hillsides





After admiring the waterfalls and the dedications to the eternal romance of Louanne and Joel, my mind started drifting to the burgeoning Corona Virus crisis. If you wanted to hide out from a highly infectious disease, Little Mountain seems like a pretty good spot. But then my mind started drifting toward zombies, and whether or not Little Mountain has defensible positions, and what if the zombies were the 28 Days Later fast-moving kind, and then I made myself stop thinking.





As I quickly reached the end of the trail, my virus-hiding fantasy immediately ended, as I came across two boys wandering around aimlessly with guns (a reminder that I was in America's pubes), an older couple grilling at a campsite, and a large family with a Duggar-like quantity of children who'd cut up some large cardboard boxes, and were using them to sled down a grassy slope.
Life will find a way.

By the time I got back to my car, I was sweating profusely, almost like it was 80 degrees because it was definitely 80 degrees, and the clouds were starting to disperse. Maybe we'll get a winter next year?
I had originally planned to follow some friends' recommendation to eat lunch at Guapo's Barnyard Grill and BBQ, but after looking at a map (reference to an older travelogue: I am keeping my promise to travel GPS free!), I realized I wouldn't get to Guapo's til 3 pm (that ain't lunch time!), and would have approximately three minutes to be seated, order, and eat, so I changed my plans on the fly.
For one, I actually wanted to have time to eat, and for two, I actually wanted to fill my car up with gas at a gas station with Cleetus, instead of having to siphon it out of Cleetus' car after hiking through the woods, then hiking all the way back to my car and spitting the gasoline into my tank. That's how Cleetus died.
I broke down and used Google Maps to find a gas station, and do you know that bastard put me on multiple dirt roads, though it did take me past a shack in the middle of nowhere, yet still next door to a hair salon, with the very literal name,The BBQ Shack

I forgave Google Maps for the dirt road because I really wanted barbecue, and this shack is magical.
I ordered brisket, baked beans, baked potato salad--that's right, not potato salad, but BAKED POTATO SALAD--a giant sweet tea, and some pecan pie. The nice old lady running the shack had the exact same Southern accent as my great aunt Faye, who was born in the same Glynn, LA swamp as me, but is a refined Southern gentlewoman. When I told the nice old barbecue lady she sounded like my aunt, asked where she was from, and she answered, "Down the road in Greenwood," I suddenly felt a sinking feeling in my gut. Maybe that's why, instead of getting to enjoy my enormous sweet tea, I put my thumb through it while getting into the car. I then had to manically chug it before 2/3 of it drained out (considering it was 500 degrees outside, I was pretty thirsty).
Also, sadness of sadness, my little pecan pie flopped out of my hand and rolled under my brake pedal, but I just wiped it off and ate it anyway because it was a delicious pecan pie that was brought to me by universal serendipity, or because God wanted me to eat it, but either way, I ate that pecan pie, after I gorged myself on all the rest of the food, which was incredible, particularly the baked potato salad, which was some kind of starchy miracle. I highly recommend The BBQ Shack.



However, I mentioned a sinking feeling, and this is what caused it:
I cheated.
I cheated on the state of Louisiana.
I cheated just like those tracers from the Natchez art school, and my inner Leonardo da Vinci instilled in me a great feeling of guilt and remorse.
After all, despite Little Mountain's great view and The BBQ Shack's great food, in truth, both Driskill Mountain and Longleaf Vista in Louisiana's Kisatchie National Wilderness have better views, and let's be honest, Mississippi, I'ma let you finish, but Louisiana has the best food on the planet. On top of these, all points in Louisiana are closer to Baton Rouge than Little Mountain Trail in Mississippi.
So what I'm saying is, I'm sorry, Louisiana. I hereby reaffirm my commitment to you. If I survive this pandemic, all my future drive-to hikes will be within your sweet borders. The end.
Well, not really the end. I made it to a gas station a few miles away and encountered a bunch of bizarro people with extremely White Anglo-Saxon Protestant looks, who were mostly wearing Ole Miss gear. I had to get out of this place, no offense to WASP's, but extreme offense to Ole Miss fans.
I drove and drove and drove for hours and hours to get back home, nearly dying in Jackson, MS because no one there knows how to drive, and it took so very, very long, but I did get back to Baton Rouge, and my son's school by five pm.
A couple days later, his school told the kids to stay home, and changed their curriculum to online only, and the physical therapist told me they were closing up shop and that my tendon'ts would have to wait, and my employer sent my wife and me home (we both work at the same place) and told us to work from there.
And there we've been, not going anywhere, not seeing anyone but neighbors at a distance, and waiting out the Skunky Beer Apocalypse. May it end soon with us and all of you well. With we? With us? It would suck for all of this to end with a grammatical error.