Why We Went This Way

Day 4: Batesville, MS to Hope, AR – 306.5 miles*
The reason we traveled through this part of Mississippi and stayed in Batesville was because just a hip and a skip down the road was Quitman County. As in the game of Scrabble, in the Moss Motoring Challenge the proper use of the letter Q is important. There is a town beginning with the letter Q in Mississippi too, Quitman, on the other side of the state, but we will miss it on the return trip. Not too much of a problem though as there is a Quinby in South Carolina about a 100 miles from home which we’ll get later.

The letter Q county was my main consideration for coming this way, but Donna noticed that there as a county called Sunflower on our route, so just because of that name, it will replace the recently nabbed Swain County as our S entry. We drove about 50 miles through the middle of Sunflower County and didn’t see a single sunflower.

Also in Sunflower County we stumbled on a Destination that we had been long mulling over how to get, a Jail or Prison. Turns out we were going to pass right by the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. I pulled the Miata into a sort of lane for pulling in to the gate of the prison, Donna held up the challenge cover page near the windshield and I snapped a couple pictures. We didn’t dare get out of the car and try any posing because we were already getting the evil eye from the guards at the gate.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 290 (-16.5) – Total miles so far: 1128.3