Away from the Crowds in Mississippi

The birthplace of Kermit the Frog is located in Leland. Nearby is Greenville, where the famous Muppet puppeteer Jim Henson was born in 1935. The small town of Leland has proclaimed itself the birthplace of the most famous Muppet created by Henson, Kermit the Frog, emerging from the swamplands in which Henson once played.

You can learn the story of Kermit at the small museum that displays puppets and memorabilia honoring Henson’s creation, Kermit the Frog.

The Clark Creek Natural Area in Woodville is an amazing place with more than fifty waterfalls. Some of the falls have swimming holes. You can walk along the hiking trails to get a look at nature all around and the falls tumbling down.

Deer Island offers visitors 17 miles of beaches and lies off the coast of Biloxi. It can be reached by boat. The island is home to 10 endangered species and a great place for birdwatching with a variety of shorebirds and nesting ospreys. It is a favorite for kayakers to camp.

Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo is a two-room shotgun shack. The little white house with the porch swing is his original home, on its original site, restored to its original state, just as it would have been on the day of Elvis's birth on January 8, 1935. The Mississippi Historic Site also features a small museum, an events center, and the Assembly of God Church, where the Presley family worshiped. At the age of 13 Elvis could be seen walking about Tupelo with a guitar that his mom had bought him. Eventually his dad took his family to Memphis, and today this site is part of the Mississippi Blues Trail.

Greenville Cypress Preserve features a cypress forest with two primary trails. The Meadow Trail has a crushed limestone surface, and the other trail features two boardwalk bridges crossing the north and south sections of the cypress brakes. Visitors enjoy the wildflowers, find peaceful places to relax, and see wood duck nesting boxes.

Gulf Islands National Seashore stretches across 135,000 acres of the Gulf barrier islands of Mississippi and Florida. It can be accessed by car from the Davis Bayou Area in Ocean Springs. A visitor center offers a look into the many ecosystems of the seashore, the wildlife, and conservation efforts. Among the islands are Cat, Horn, Petit Bois, West Petit Bois, and Ship Island, all accessible by boat.

Lynyrd Skynyrd Monuments, located off Interstate 55 in Magnolia, are marble monuments in memoriam to the lost band members from the plane crash. Lovely bouquets of roses can be found at the foot of the monuments. Lynyrd Skynyrd, the rock band famous for “Sweet Home Alabama" and “Free Bird,” now has highway signs that point to the site of the Mississippi plane crash that claimed the lives of some of its members.

Mississippi Petrified Forest is just one of a handful of petrified forests in the US and the only one found in the Southeast. Petrified wood is the official state rock of Mississippi. Here visitors can find a prehistoric forest of maple, fir, palm, and other trees that turned to stone millions of years ago, There are lovely nature walking trails. The mighty trees were toppled by a river that washed through the area, carving out the ravine and depositing the giant logs in the riverbed, where they remain today. The driftwood was buried by sediment and minerals that replaced the organic material as it slowly decayed over time, turning the logs into stone fossils. Today this area is a National Natural Landmark.

Visitors can relax on a bench-shaped petrified log named “Caveman’s Bench.”

Red Bluff is located near Morgantown. This is a geological marvel and has been named the “Little Grand Canyon.” You can see colorful sediment layers that were exposed by the erosion of the Pearl River. A trail leads to the base of the canyon.

Turning Angel Statue is in memorial of a gas explosion that occurred in the basement of the Natchez Drug Company on March 14, 1908. It killed five young female employees and caused the brick structure to collapse. Upon the tombstone are the last names of the victims. The angel stands in the historic Mississipi cemetery in Natchez. It is said that this angel turns to look at cars that drive by and is most noticeable at night when headlights of cars shine upon it as they come round that bend of Cemetery Road. Local author Greg Iles even has a book titled “Turning Angel”, which was named for the statue.

Windsor Ruins are the amazing 23 columns still standing tall in the spot where a grand mansion burnt to the ground. They were once part of the home of a planter called Smith Coffee Daniel II. It was a four-story mansion, and after Daniel’s early death, the house passed to his heirs. During the Civil War, both Union and Confederate troops used the cupola as an observation post, and the house became a Union hospital. After the war ended, American author Mark Twain used the cupola to observe the Mississippi River and his description of Windsor is featured in his memoir “Life on the Mississippi”. A fire destroyed the grand house in 1890 leaving 23 columns standing. The Windsor Ruins have been featured in films like “Raintree County” starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. In 1985 the ruins received landmark status.