Mississippi gives you a choice between two very different drives, and the deck has questions for both. One is a quiet parkway through the woods with no trucks and no billboards. The other is a flat, straight highway through cotton country that gave the world the blues.
The Natchez Trace: slow and green
The Natchez Trace Parkway runs diagonally across the state, from Natchez in the southwest to Tupelo in the northeast and on into Tennessee. The speed limit is mostly 50 mph, and mileposts count the distance from Natchez. That pace suits trivia. Try one question per milepost for a stretch, then switch to looking for deer.
Tupelo is right on the Trace, so the Elvis question has a stop attached: his birthplace, a small two-room house, is open to visitors. The Mississippi Petrified Forest in Flora is a short detour from the Trace near Jackson, the capital.
Highway 61: the Blues Highway
Highway 61 runs north from Vicksburg through the flat, wide Mississippi Delta toward Memphis. Along the way, blue markers of the Mississippi Blues Trail stand outside churches, juke joints and crossroads, each one telling part of the music’s history. Four questions in the deck belong on this road:
- The Blues Trail markers themselves.
- B.B. King, whose museum is in Indianola, a short drive east of 61.
- The Crossroads in Clarksdale, where 61 meets 49.
- The Yazoo River, which runs along the Delta’s eastern side.
Leland, home of the Kermit the Frog exhibit, is also near 61, so the Jim Henson question works here too.
Three Mississippi facts that aren’t in the deck
- Oprah Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, which is right on the Natchez Trace.
- The bottlenose dolphin is Mississippi’s state water mammal.
- Milk is Mississippi’s official state beverage.