RED BLUFF

Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Thanksgiving + 2 days - 

“Hey, it’s the weekend; let’s do something, go somewhere.”

“OK, what sounds good?”

“There’s a place up in Mississippi a couple of hours, they call it Mississippi’s Grand Canyon.”

“So, Mississippi has a big hole in the ground?”

“Yea, Red Bluff is up on the Pearl River above Columbia. 

So we jump off mid-morning with a general idea where we are going, GPS set for Columbia, MS. Northbound on I-55, just across the Mississippi line we get the word to exit and head northeast. The road goes two-lane with deep ditches on either side and no shoulder to speak of. Within a few minutes we’re immersed in rural, south Mississippi. The road is curvy-winding, goes through a couple of paint peeling, ’Fried Green Tomatoes’ towns. We discovered unmarked hairpin turns and played chicken with old trucks that wanted their half of the road to come out of the middle. 

In Columbia, we wandered around looking for a place to eat but the streets took weird angles and loops with no particular pattern, maybe game trails from the 17th Century; stopped at a boutique/restaurant but they were redecorating instead of cooking. Since the tornado, a lady told us, nobody knows where to find good food. A man walked in and shared, “Go east on this street and turn right at every light until you come to Walmart and you’ll find a Mexican place in the parking lot.” We did and we did. The food was overpriced, more like a TV dinner but it was filling and we didn’t complain. 

Red Bluff is on state road 578, about 10 miles north. We missed a turn and ended up on hwy 13; took 8 or 10 miles to figure it out and had to back track. By the time we got to Red Bluff the sun was getting low. Mississippi’s grand canyon has not been developed, obviously private property except for the right of way. Some of the road along the edge has eroded and caved into the 200 ft. deep network of gullies and sloughs. The canyon/gully was concealed behind a thick woods. At the south end there was a great, steel barrier that stopped everything but pedestrian traffic and a new section of highway veered off around the woods. A mile later the old road emerged again from the trees. Several houses were on that road and you could drive all the way back to another old barrier, on the edge where blacktop was falling into the gorge. We parked next to other cars, next to the no trespassing/keep out signs and began to walk. Trees that had been growing along the top had oozed down and are now growing at the bottom. We peered over the edge and across the chasm, took photos and walked the feature end to end. What was left of the old asphalt road was in good condition; reflectors imbedded in the center and painted lines indicated that the cave-in was recent. 

Evidently it’s a popular place to camp, and to party. At a high point on the rim, if you will, someone had pitched a tent and there were ashes from a fire. All down the steep wall below, trash and junk had been dispatched. With a little imagination it might have been mistaken for modern art. The power line had run on the eroded side of the road and where it had been rerouted back across, people had started another art display; sneakers tied together in pairs, thrown up and hanging on the wire. It reminded me of a night-spot on the Florida/Alabama border, on the beach, where women threw their brassieres up and over several ropes stretched tight above the stage. I suspect some of those brassieres came from some red neck’s mother’s underwear drawer but the message is simple and straight forward. Flora-Bama is a rowdy place, home to an annual festival that satisfies the same need in song writers that Sturgis, SD does for bikers. I bet a lot to the same bikers do both festivals. 

Understand that I just returned from spending eight days and nights in the real-deal Grand Canyon, in Arizona, a mile deep and ten miles across, 260 miles long. Red Bluff is no grand canyon but it is certainly a geological anomaly. On a high point above the Pearl River, some exotic combination of gravity and ground water caused a hillside to begin slipping toward the river. Erosion works. If I were younger and had more time it would have been a hoot to climb down and explore but I satisfied myself looking and taking photos. It was worth the time and drive up; I’m glad we did it. Where else but in Mississippi would you find such a display of nature’s handiwork on the same page with white-trash trash and lewd, redneck graffiti painted on the old blacktop? It was after dark when we got back to Baton Rouge, to a bowl of ice cream and the last half of a football game. 

“Hey, what’s on for tomorrow? You want to drive down the coast, take photos in the salt marsh, maybe antique shopping on the way back?”

“. . . . . . . . . . . . .”

“What do you think about sleeping late and just hanging out?”

“Yea, I think that will do.”