Day 119

Despite going to bed late-ish, we did get a reasonably early start, on the road by 8 of the clock.

Then the Kudzu started.

It seems that the whole of this part of the country is infested with this stuff.

For the uninitiated, Kudzu is a prolific weed, which takes over everything. It covers trees, houses, bushes, cars, anything.

It was introduced to the country in 1876, farmers were told to plant it to prevent soil erosion, became a gardener’s pet sort of plant, and of course then took over. In the mid fifties it was declared an illegal immigrant, but by then it was too late. This stuff grows at a rate of about one foot per day, and although it is technically a vine member of the pea family, it has multiple stems, some 6 inches thick, from each root system, and is bloody difficult to get rid of. Miles and miles of both sides of the roadways are covered with it, big green leaves smothering everything.

If you get no daily report tomorrow, look under the kudzu, we may have been got in the middle of the night!!

We traveled nearly 600 miles today, through Georgia, all across Alabama, all across Mississippi, and into Arkansas. We stayed on highway 82 the whole way, and we were very impressed with the quality of the road, especially in Mississippi. We expected a relatively poor State to have badly maintained back roads, but this road is as good as some, and better than most freeways we have been on. Compliments to the Mississippi highway department.

We saw some beautiful old southern towns, with magnificent mansions, with two story columns, and acres and acres of land.

We saw some really skuzzy towns as well!!

We have passed miles and miles of cotton fields, as well as lots of rice paddies.

Tomorrow, sadly, will be our last day on the road for a few months.

Wildlife watch today was a deer, some cows and horses, pretty boring really, but a change from mooses, Karen!!