Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

I walked 18 miles today. Yes, I am slowing as the week progresses. Perhaps I did too much on Monday and Tuesday (20 and 19.5 miles respectively). My excuse was the rain again this morning. I didn’t have the energy to trudge through miles in the rain. Instead, we sat around in Laurel for a couple of hours to let the rain pass. The afternoon had no rain, but about 200% humidity. I carry business cards in my shirt pocket. They are soaked at the end of almost every day. Last year we had frost by this time in Tennessee. Tomorrow should be in the high 80s. Gasp.

I walked through Sandersville, Laurel, and Pendorff, Mississippi.

Sandersville is a small town. It has a dozen businesses along Route 11. The good news is they are all open and active. I put a photo of the Sandersville post office on the Wikipedia page for the town.

Laurel is a city of about 20,000 people. Route 11 runs along the southern edge of the city. Laurel isn’t much to look at from Route 11. The north end of town is old houses that aren’t well maintained. The south end of town comprises several miles of similar homes and businesses. The good news is that the businesses are open and active. The bad news is…they just don’t look good. See, for example, some ugly concertina wire on a business.

Concertina Wire (not) Decorating a Business in Laurel, Mississippi

We found a good coffee shop downtown a block off Route 11 near the train station. The name is Lee’s Coffee and Tea Shop. A great place to wait for the rain to stop.

The train station is an actual working train station with Amtrak passenger service. I put a photo of the train station on the Wikipedia page for Laurel.

The Eastman, Gardiner and Company Building

Just a little south of the train station is this large building. It looks like a courthouse or something. It is the office of Eastman, Gardiner and Company. Some looking on the Internet taught me that this company at one time owned the entire city. They ran the railroads and all the lumber industry here. The company goes back into the 1800s. A really nice office building.

Pendorff is an area immediately south of Laurel. I couldn’t tell where Laurel stopped and Pendorff started. I also couldn’t tell how to spell Pendorff. The green sign naming the area had two fs on the end of the name. All the places that were Pendorf-this or Pendorf-that had one f on the end of the name. Confusing? It was to me.

And then there are the pick up trucks. I took this photo in the morning in Sandersville. I count 13 pickup trucks in this parking lot next to a coffee shop. I live in Reston, Virginia. There I could take a photo with 13 SUVs in a Starbucks parking lot. The pickup trucks actually seem to have more utility in the rural south than the SUVs have in suburban Virginia. Just a change of place and change of habit.

Pickup Trucks