#2: [15-Nov-10]

19-Feb-2001 -- This is my second confluence for the day. I left the confluence near Port Gibson and headed north toward the one near Grace, Mississippi. On the way I stopped by Onward Store on Highway 61N in Onward, Mississippi. There’s a plaque out front that mentions Teddy Roosevelt's visit to the area a long time ago. Story goes, he killed a black bear nearby and that's why we have Teddy Bears today. Sounds good to me. Inside the store they have photographs of the bear hunt as well as these two dancing bears. At least they used to dance. The clerk told me they don't work anymore. Used to be you could pay them a quarter and they would push a button behind the counter. A vacuum cleaner noise would start and the female bear would start jumping up and down. The male bear would slowly grind his hips like he was doing a hula-hoop or something. This lasted about 30 seconds and then the vacuum cleaner motor would stop, the female would slowly sink back down, and the male would stop mid-grind. It’s a shame this thing doesn’t work anymore. Maybe someone can fix it one day.

I left there and continued on my way to the confluence, but was sidetracked again -- this time by two dinosaurs and a giraffe. Just up the highway from Onward is a spot on the map named Egremont. There’s a dilapidated place with these three metal sculptures out front. I stopped to take a photo and there was a guy out there unloading his truck after a morning of rabbit hunting. He told me a guy named Wesley Bobo made them some 30 or 35 years ago. He said Mr. Bobo sold the place 5 years ago and moved up to Tunica, but left the sculptures behind. Said the Smithsonian had one of Mr. Bobo’s dinosaurs on display. Well, I'll be.

I made it to the area of the confluence and found that it was on the property of a trucking company that was closed on Sunday. There was a mobile home nearby, so I knocked on the door, but got no reply. I was trying to decide what to do when a vehicle pulled into the trucking company's parking lot. It was the owner and his wife, Jim and Penny Newsom, stopping by the office for something after church. I talked with them for a while and explained what it was I was doing. They were excited that a confluence was on their property and Mr. Newsom marked the spot with a flag. They were very nice people and it was a pleasure meeting them.

When I left this morning, I thought I would visit two or possibly three confluences today. Well, it was beginning to look like I had time to visit four! I figured it would be close to dark when I made it to the final one. If I ran into trouble finding the third one, I would run out of daylight before I made it to the fourth. I figured, what the @#$% and decided to go for four. I jumped in the truck and headed northeast toward Charleston, Mississippi -- about 120 miles away -- for my third confluence visit of the day.