Delta Roadtrip: Pearl River Resort (Part 1)
Editor's note: This is the first in a four part series on the Fourth of July roadtrip to Pearl River Resort.
Choctaw bound: Lee Hodges, Drew Pinkston, Amber Harrell, John Stewart and Chris Dantone start the morning right with a case of the cold stuff.
Ten o'clock in the morning. Sharp. That was the time we had mutually decided on leaving Greenwood for Geyser Falls water park in Philadephia's neighboring Indian reservation: Choctaw, Mississippi. That is why I had showed up at our rally point, Webster's Food and Drink, ten minutes early.
At 9:50 a.m., with towel in hand, cooler in tow, donning my best set of swim trunks and a burning desire to surf in the wavepool, I was ready to roll. Around 10:30 a.m. people started to show up. I had been sitting there for forty God-forsaken minutes listening to Max 99 in my rental Ford Taurus. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed in everyone's tardiness.
The Neverending Stewart Story
Despite the aforementioned sob story, the wait wasn't all that bad. You see, as I sat parked, I could see all the goings-on of Claiborne Avenue and the steady flow of town drunks getting their morning fifth at Riverfront Liquors. You've got to strike while the iron is hot, as they say.
While jamming-out and eaves-dropping, I played witness to John Stewart, proprietor of Riverfront and Webster's, as he pulled into his new establishment's parking lot. As he left the liquor store, he carried what appeared to be a sack full of money and a bottle of UV Blue Vodka.
Shortly thereafter, he sped away in the opposite direction of our Webster's rendezvous, and well past our meeting time.
So, as everyone showed up and loaded Mark Bowie's Black Bullet bus, we started to wonder where in the world John Stewart had gone. He stopped returning phone calls (which were being placed about every five minutes at this point) and it was already 10:45. I had been there nearly an hour.
Around that time, we recieved a hurried call from Lee Pruett asking where we were and if we had left John Stewart. When asked why, Pruett remarked "because I knew y'all were leaving town at ten o'clock and I just saw Stewart downtown at the bank."
In retrospect, he was probably depositing that sack full of money I had seen him leave the liquor store with earlier. But I digress.
A few phone calls later, we finally caught up with Stewart around 11 a.m. and told him he had five minutes before we left him. With the ultimatum securely in place, he showed up in three-and-a-half minutes. No beer, no towel, not even a change of clothes. Just himself and that famous ear-to-ear grin he always wears.
So, an hour-and-a-half late, we rode off into the distance with eleven passengers in a seven-passenger balloon chase vehicle and John Stewart in time-out. Then, all of a sudden, the sound of beers being opened in unison echoed within the cabin walls. It was well before noon.
Steve the Chauffeur; Amber the Navigator
In a story that is fraught with confusion and idiosynchrasies, it is extremely important to note that our bus driver only had one eye. When I heard Mark Bowie tell us that one of his "guys" was going to drive us down to Philly, I was a bit relieved, knowing that none of us would be in any shape whatsoever to drive that bus.
Nevertheless, when he referred to the driver as "One-Eyed Steve," I secretly hoped it was an inside joke about a nickname of some sort. It wasn't. As soon as ol' Steve removed his sunglasses, it revealed a strange truth to his name. There in the shadows of his baseball cap lay the remnants of what once was an eyeball. And it wasn't pretty.
As my thoughts began to purposely wonder off as far away from reality as possible, I was constantly brought back to Earth with the perplexed wonderment of how his lack of depth perception negatively affected his driving capabilities.
In all his one-eyed splendor, could he possibly navigate the oversized Bullet and her precious cargo all the way to Philadelphia by himself?
Luckily for our group, we had Amber at the helm. She quickly reminded us, as she had done so many times before, that the trip from Greenwood to Philadelphia was "a straight shot." Surely we couldn't possibly mess this up. Surely.
Two lefts, three rights and a U-turn later, we arrived in Philadelphia/Choctaw, Mississippi, home of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and Pearl River Resort. First stop: Geyser Falls!
Choctaw bound: Lee Hodges, Drew Pinkston, Amber Harrell, John Stewart and Chris Dantone start the morning right with a case of the cold stuff.
Ten o'clock in the morning. Sharp. That was the time we had mutually decided on leaving Greenwood for Geyser Falls water park in Philadephia's neighboring Indian reservation: Choctaw, Mississippi. That is why I had showed up at our rally point, Webster's Food and Drink, ten minutes early.
At 9:50 a.m., with towel in hand, cooler in tow, donning my best set of swim trunks and a burning desire to surf in the wavepool, I was ready to roll. Around 10:30 a.m. people started to show up. I had been sitting there for forty God-forsaken minutes listening to Max 99 in my rental Ford Taurus. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed in everyone's tardiness.
The Neverending Stewart Story
Despite the aforementioned sob story, the wait wasn't all that bad. You see, as I sat parked, I could see all the goings-on of Claiborne Avenue and the steady flow of town drunks getting their morning fifth at Riverfront Liquors. You've got to strike while the iron is hot, as they say.
While jamming-out and eaves-dropping, I played witness to John Stewart, proprietor of Riverfront and Webster's, as he pulled into his new establishment's parking lot. As he left the liquor store, he carried what appeared to be a sack full of money and a bottle of UV Blue Vodka.
Shortly thereafter, he sped away in the opposite direction of our Webster's rendezvous, and well past our meeting time.
So, as everyone showed up and loaded Mark Bowie's Black Bullet bus, we started to wonder where in the world John Stewart had gone. He stopped returning phone calls (which were being placed about every five minutes at this point) and it was already 10:45. I had been there nearly an hour.
Around that time, we recieved a hurried call from Lee Pruett asking where we were and if we had left John Stewart. When asked why, Pruett remarked "because I knew y'all were leaving town at ten o'clock and I just saw Stewart downtown at the bank."
In retrospect, he was probably depositing that sack full of money I had seen him leave the liquor store with earlier. But I digress.
A few phone calls later, we finally caught up with Stewart around 11 a.m. and told him he had five minutes before we left him. With the ultimatum securely in place, he showed up in three-and-a-half minutes. No beer, no towel, not even a change of clothes. Just himself and that famous ear-to-ear grin he always wears.
So, an hour-and-a-half late, we rode off into the distance with eleven passengers in a seven-passenger balloon chase vehicle and John Stewart in time-out. Then, all of a sudden, the sound of beers being opened in unison echoed within the cabin walls. It was well before noon.
Steve the Chauffeur; Amber the Navigator
In a story that is fraught with confusion and idiosynchrasies, it is extremely important to note that our bus driver only had one eye. When I heard Mark Bowie tell us that one of his "guys" was going to drive us down to Philly, I was a bit relieved, knowing that none of us would be in any shape whatsoever to drive that bus.
Nevertheless, when he referred to the driver as "One-Eyed Steve," I secretly hoped it was an inside joke about a nickname of some sort. It wasn't. As soon as ol' Steve removed his sunglasses, it revealed a strange truth to his name. There in the shadows of his baseball cap lay the remnants of what once was an eyeball. And it wasn't pretty.
As my thoughts began to purposely wonder off as far away from reality as possible, I was constantly brought back to Earth with the perplexed wonderment of how his lack of depth perception negatively affected his driving capabilities.
In all his one-eyed splendor, could he possibly navigate the oversized Bullet and her precious cargo all the way to Philadelphia by himself?
Luckily for our group, we had Amber at the helm. She quickly reminded us, as she had done so many times before, that the trip from Greenwood to Philadelphia was "a straight shot." Surely we couldn't possibly mess this up. Surely.
Two lefts, three rights and a U-turn later, we arrived in Philadelphia/Choctaw, Mississippi, home of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and Pearl River Resort. First stop: Geyser Falls!
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