Getting back to Memphis from New Orleans would normally take 6 hours, but it was going to balloon to 9 hours with stops in Birmingham Alabama and at a wildlife refuge in Mississippi.

The Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge was created to protect the unique Mississippi subspecies of the Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis pulla). The first ever refuge created under America's Endangered Species Act, it protects the wet savannah that had mostly disappeared when forestry companies started to use this type of land for pine plantations.

The reduction in wet savannah habitat went on until there were only 30-35 of these birds left in 1975. This was around the same time that biologist Jake Valentine Jr. was tasked with studying the effects of Interstate 10 construction on the local Sandhill Crane population. Scared by what he found, he led the "cranes and lanes" controversy right up to federal court and was key in getting this refuge created.

Through captive breeding and the protection of this land, there are now approximately 100 Mississippi Sandhill Cranes in existence.

This was the perfect birthday stop for Shelloo. Sandhill Cranes had tormented her for years & now it was time to finally see one. And not only some random Sandhill Crane, but this special subspecies only found in southern Mississippi.

From the fact that we have random non-birding friends who just happen upon plentiful Sandhill Crane populations in Michigan (UrbexJunkie), to the fact that I saw Sandhill Cranes recently in Northern Ontario and Isy brushed it off as extremely common, it's been the bane of Shelloo's existence that everyone else has seen them while she's raced to reported sites in Corner Brook farm fields and the Codroy Valley, only to have "just missed the thing" by the time she gets there.

Hilariously enough, that streak would continue today. Apparently we were about 10 days too late to see the Mississippi Sandhill Cranes as they were now nesting in the piney depths, far away from the visitor's trail. It was October to mid-March, not late March, that's the time to see the 4-foot tall birds.

We stopped for lunch at Popeye's in Saraland Alabama, a bit outside Mobile.

With Rosie & Shelloo continuing to try new American chain restaurants on this trip, I thought I had been to a Popeye's in Mexicantown where I only grabbed fried okra. So I wasn't really sure if that counted as "trying Popeye's."

(Looking at Google StreetView as I write this, it turns out that was actually a Church's Chicken in Mexicantown? And it was torn down in 2015!? LOL.)

Anyway, we all enjoyed the fried chicken and biscuits. Popeye's has now been moved to the list of acceptable fast food choices.

The next stop was a place I'd never been, Birmingham Alabama, but with a 3.5 hour drive ahead of us, we'd be arriving at dusk at best.

Stepping into the liquor store across from our BBQ restaurant destination, Rosie commented about how good it was to see a hill after everything being so flat the last couple of days. The trip was clearly wrapping up, with Rosie excited to go back to those hills and my heart sinking because I don't think hills are worth putting up with 13.8 feet of annual snow. It's my own problem though, as not everyone dwells on the worth of Corner Brook things versus absurd snow amounts.

I tried to put it behind me as we excitedly rushed into Dreamland BBQ for a taste of Alabama-style Q.

I cheered up pretty quickly when the Houston Rockets were playing on TV and our waiter was confused with why Canadian Shelloo would like the Houston Rockets and not the Toronto Raptors. I could tell she didn't want to say it was because of liking James Harden, so I blurted it out for her and we all had a good laugh as the waiter exclaimed that he now knew what was going on.

The BBQ itself was pretty damn good. Although I think we screwed up and only got half of the Alabama BBQ experience. We managed to eat meat cooked with hickory smoke, but we didn't get the white, mayonnaise-based sauce that Alabama seems to be known for.

At the same time, Dreamland's sauce is so popular that they sell $100,000 worth of jars each year. So we clearly had some great sauce just the same.

By the time we finished up at Dreamland, it was already 9 or 10 and we had to get up early the next morning. I had us booked at the Tourway Inn, a rundown, old 2-story motel on the edge of I-65. It ended up being just fine.

With someone begging inside the hotel check-in area, a large fence surrounding the property & the inn being located in a city often listed on America's most dangerous city lists, I decided to stay inside for the rest of the night instead of going for a walk. I was tired and the night was short anyway.

Driving the handful of blocks downtown the next morning, I think it would have been perfectly fine to go for a walk. 6th Avenue led right from our motel to the city centre and it was mostly lined by 1-story government buildings, parking lots and body shops. It seemed like the type of area that would simply be desolate at a late hour.

It was raining this morning, which put the kibosh on any short saunter around downtown. It was killing me that we were in a new, exciting American city and had to simply get going, so that's why I was down here taking pictures in the pouring rain.

The above church is the First Presbyterian Church, built in 1872.

Leaving the heart of downtown, we also stopped at the 16th Street Baptist Church, site of The Birmingham Church Bombing on September 15th, 1963.

At the time, Alabama had a governor who loved segregation, while Birmingham had a police chief who enjoyed employing violence against peaceful protest and a strong chapter of the KKK. All of this led to violence during various civil rights marches, many of which began from the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church.

Bomb threats were often called into this church to try and dissuade the marching, but eventually an actual bomb went off with nearly 200 people inside. The bomb pushed in bricks and collapsed inner walls, fatally burying four young girls in the basement.

The girls who lost their lives were 11-year-old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley & Carole Robertson.

Across from the church stands Kelly Ingram Park, with a beautiful, poignant statue known as The Four Spirits. An incredibly moving visual, I paused there and shed a few tears.

Wikipedia has a good description of the statue:

"The statue depicts the four girls in preparation for the church sermon at the 16th Street Baptist Church in the moments immediately before the explosion. The youngest girl killed in the explosion (Carol Denise McNair) is depicted releasing six doves into the air as she stands tiptoed and barefooted upon a bench as another barefooted girl (Addie Mae Collins) is depicted kneeling upon the bench, affixing a dress sash to McNair; a third girl (Cynthia Wesley) is depicted sitting upon the bench alongside McNair and Collins with a book in her lap. The book depicts the refrain of William Butler Yeats poem "The Stolen Child". The fourth girl (Carole Robertson) is depicted standing and smiling as she motions the other three girls to attend their church sermon."

I-65 is very close to the 16th Street Baptist Church and we then headed north.

Northern Alabama brought rolling landscape that continued over the state line into Mississippi.

Following all of the flat land in southern Mississippi and the Delta, we now knew this new side of The Magnolia State was about to make us break out the carabiners and belay ourselves up sharp, technical notches, past the snow line and up to the summit of Mississippi's highest point - the intense Woodall Mountain.

Time seemed to stand still as we crawled past all of the false summits, cruces and tribulations to finally, exhaustedly come out at the 807-foot Woodall Mountain summit.

We were now the highest mountaineering clique in The Magnolia State!

In reality, we drove 1 mile (1.6km) up the Woodall Mountain Road and parked at the summit.

You can see our rental car on the left.

Woodall Mountain is a monadnock, an erosion-resistant hill which persists and stands above the landscape. It was originally known as Yow Hill until local sheriff Zephaniah Woodall purchased the hill and surrounding land, renaming it Woodall Mountain in 1878.

I'm going to have to ask my friend Scott Woodall how he's related to ol' Zephaniah.

As Shelloo wanted to stop at a post office, I used this opportunity to stop at Woodall Mountain's nearby county courthouse - which is in the town of Iuka, seat of Tishomingo County.

This is the old Tishomingo County Courthouse, built in 1889. It was once a very popular place to get married as the most northeastern Mississippi county, because Tennessee and Alabama both had 3-day waiting periods, while Mississippi had no marriage waiting period at all.

Now you know a fun fact about Tishomingo County Mississippi!

The 1889 courthouse was replaced by the above structure in 1970.

If you ever wonder why I post about county courthouses, I actually really like the above structure and I enjoy how America's 3007 counties gives me a list which might bring me to places like this. I'm happy that photographing and seeking out county courthouses brought me to Iuka.

(Plus now I can nerdily make a map of Mississippi and colour in the 5 counties where I've visited the county courthouse!)

We'd stop at Rosie's aunt's in Memphis, even though Shelloo and I were concerned about getting to the Memphis Airport on time. Rosie was totally right though, as we got to the airport early enough to even grab lunch at some really mediocre, understaffed airport restaurant.

Was that airport restaurant maybe the only low of the trip? It might've been. Because it was just a deadly old trip with the b'ys :)