Mt. Olive Mississippi

1. Mississippi spider about 3" across HUGE! (Golden Silk Orb Weaver)
2. John Brewer, Jim's dad
3. John Brewers Cabin. Solar Powered, ALL the comforts yet very remote.
4. Gracie 5 yrs Jason & Crystals oldest daughter
5. Eli 11 mos Jason & Crystal's youngest son
6. Kinsey 3 yrs Jason and Crystal's middle daughter
7. Scott Stephanie's husband
8. Stephanie with daughter Nat 1 yr 10 mos Scott's 2 favorite girls
9. Just me
10. Roxy
11. Uncle Walt
12. Aunt Kay
13. From Left to right Nancy, Cathy, & Peggy. Aunt Kay & Uncle Walt's Daughters
14. Nancy's husband David

Well, We’ve been here since the 10th of September. It’s now the 28th of September. I’m learning the art of R-E-L-A-X-I-N-G. I have slowed my breathing, unfocused my gaze on the horizon, and am noticing the fire ants at my feet! Mississippi has a lot of bugs. They have red bugs, (chiggers) and ticks, huge spiders, and mosquitoes, and love bugs. You need to wash your car often cause if you don’t the bugs will devolve the paint on your car.
Like my eye opening lessons of Europe, I am learning that my belief that everyone East of the Grand Canyon was a Hick. Wrong answer! Everyone on this side of the Canyon has a Wal-Mart in their hometown with the same stuff as Susanville & Reno. Some folks around here think Wal-Mart is tacky, low quality, and downright un-American albeit a handy necessary evil that will do in a pinch. Buy American, buy quality, and you won’t be sorry. Definitely in the Bible belt, folks are very politically opinionated and if you ain’t for McCain you ain’t shee-it. They all have dish TV and they watch QVC. They all have solar doo-dads stuck in the ground bordering the flowerbed just like Milford. The significant difference is that they all tawk funny. They say Y’all a lot BUT these folks know how to eat. Catfish, turnip greens, red beans & rice with Tobasco Sauce, boiled peanuts, and Seafood Gumbo. My taste buds are confused. Cousin Jim thinks that in a crowd my physical presence is lacking, and I require something…….. to make me stand out a little more. The solution is a Fedora hat. Taking into consideration my height, weight, shape of my face, and skin tone the proper hat has been selected, purchased, and shipped from the Akubra hat store in Australia Http://www.hatsdirect.com . The style will be a fur felt federation four. The color is dark brown the size is 57. There is no guarantee that I will become Dashing, or Suave, however I will become a new member of a growing number of men in the U.S. that believe a good looking, quality hat beats a baseball cap any day, anywhere. My new hat should arrive in approximately 9 days.
Moving on. Roxanne has been living up to her reputation and has been baking non-stop. Food I take for granted is appreciated by the locals, and relatives are driving from great distance just to get a taste. Here I thought they wanted to visit with me. Actually we are having a great visit. An interesting part of our visit is that the younger crowd has their own kids and they are ALL precious. It’s kind of like a grand kid fix. That’s the one down side of being on the road. We miss our grand kids so much. We have a picture of Megan, Hunter, Gage & Gracyn next to our bed at Aunt Kay and Uncle Walt’s.
We have wireless DSL Internet (Thanks Chrissy) so we check our email daily. Chrissy, Aunt Kay & Uncle Walt's neighbor offered wireless internet access when we first arrived. Just another example of how friendly folks in Mississippi are. Actually Chrissy is John Brewers Granddaughter.
Sometime next week we are going to the Coast. When there we will go to a Casino. Another item on the agenda is for Uncle Walt, who is retired from the Air Force to take us to the Base Exchange. Known as the BX. It is a store that has everything and the prices are supposed to be really great.
It's Sunday October 12th and we leave Mississippi tomorrow. We're anxious to head towards home but sad to leave family. Today will be spent visiting, loading up, and making plans to get together as soon as possible. Roxanne was trying to get Aunt Kay and Uncle Walt to commit to an Alaskan cruise next July. At first they said OK. Aunt Kay started having second thoughts of sea sickness, walking long distances, and recent gallbladder surgery affecting her eating habits. Roxanne will continue to encourage Kay to go. We'll just have to wait and see.
Next stop......... The Alamo