I left New Orleans after a weekend of eating, drinking, dancing, and regretting a move to the north. It was the first time in long time that I’d gone out with a friend from the city instead of other tourists or exploring on my own. We talked about how tourists tend to see what they want to see, and, in many cases, it’s the same across every city. (This is the beauty of Hard Rock Cafe. It’s the McDonald’s of tourism: it’s a destination in every major tourist city that requires zero new interaction with the unique elements of the city. You know what you can get and exactly how you’ll get it. The only variety is the name on the T-shirt.) The thing, though, is that local New Orleans seems just a different shade of what it puts out for the tourists. It’s better eating, drinking, and dancing, but it’s still crawfish, everything, and everywhere. That may just be my Hard Rock New Orleans, but it’s also wonderful.

I decided to head north to try and avoid the storms Lee was sending southeast of the Appalachians. I left New Orleans in a heavy mist and rode through gray skies into Mississippi before blue and sun finally started peeking through just in time to give way to a starry, half-moon night .

The land here is lush. Ivy trains up every standing object, whether willow, power line, or abandoned bike. It’s consuming the state, turning dead trees green again, and crawling out along telephone lines to reach back down and drag the lines towards earth. Every brown road sign is for an old plantation, but my roads keep taking me through towns in the middle of nowhere where it seems like I’m the only white person around.

I’ve moved into bear country. Onward, Mississippi, is two miles from where Teddy Roosevelt refused to kill a captive bear. Yellow bear crossing signs are everywhere, even my the gazebo in the center of Rolling Fork’s town square, just across from the museum dedicated to Muddy Waters’ hometown.

It’s been a while since I’ve camped in this heavily forested of country, doubtless surrounded by bears. I head to sleep listening for masses crashing through the trees, but only hear the birds fighting by the river. A set of noisy owls is winning.