Spring comes early in the Deep South. On the first of March, I was in lower Mississippi and the trees were just releasing their first buds into the world. It was rainy and rich, the scent of fresh earth and new life in the air.
In Louisiana, spring had come even earlier and I entered a world in full bloom. The tulips and bluebells dotted the fresh grass with bursts of color and everywhere I turned, a tree had purple buds (I wish I could name it!)
The days were warm and the nights too. One night in Baton Rouge, the low of the day was 65 F and I slept like it was high summer, with just a sheet and fans blowing. I chased the new season across the border back into Mississippi as my travels took me east again – like traveling back in time where Spring was just starting once more. Bluebird skies and average temps in the 60Fs made it feel close to summer for this northerner.
As I traveled further west still into Alabama, spring was reaching Birmingham. It is the rainy season down here and I woke in the middle of the night more than once to heavy rainfall and rolling waves of thunder. I explored the Civil Rights Museum in one of the most infamous neighborhoods in the city where the war for equal rights raged harder than most, and rain covered the 16th Street Baptist Church and pooled in the cracked sidewalks of Kelly Ingram Park. (All three places are absolute must-visits for anyone visiting Birmingham.)
My road turned north here and in the hills of Bankhead National Forest in northern Alabama, spring was starting once more. Waterfalls raged, swollen with rain, and trees held only the smallest, newest buds.
In Tenessee where I spent most of this week, spring is in full force. Magnolias are already dropping petals and bushes are mid-change from flowering to greenery. It must have been warm recently but this week was chilly, dropping down into the mid-20s at night – a drastic change and a reminder that spring (and growth) is not constant.
My road only continues north from here and I know every state line I cross from here will be starting spring over again, an exciting prospect for this writer who has always wished tulip season was longer.
I can only hope that the snow will be gone by the time I reach New York – and by the time I turn west and reach Colorado. I will get to watch spring unfold day after day until suddenly it is summer once more. How the year has already begun to fly.
