Oh no! It's HIPPIES!

I can almost forget we are in the deep south: the still, maybe even more segregated south where white people continue to embrace their privilege and black people fight for freedom.

I can almost forget because we get so many positive high signs, peace signs, honks, beaming smiles, waves.

I can almost forget because the land is so beautiful, so green and brown and natural.

I decide to risk heading to a state park. Jasi is not complaining, nor sleeping, so I want to fill ourselves with energy of the mother earth so we can hit the road again. I need to be in Jackson Mississipi tomorrow to meet with those great Occupy folks!

I see the brown sign: state park 7 miles and decide to risk it.

As we pull into the park we are greeted at the gate by a bald old white man in a pale green park uniform exclaiming "Oh no, will you look at that, it's hippies!"

I steely ask if hippies are welcome here.

Sure, we welcome everyone here, he claims to my askanced disbelief as his eyes slide pointedly from my face to Jasi.

Jasi & I park in the hot sun for our solar panels, tumble down the hill into the park, and are delighted to see a little train running through the woods, along side a cold small river that seems to originate underground and flow swift but shallow over several hundred feet of tiny rocks to pool under a bridge, and then make her way through the forest gathering water as she runs.

There is a big sign that says "Gem and Mineral Show" so after we cool off playing in the river, the lore of the little train is too great to continue swimming so we hope the train to the other side of the park, where the show is happening.

We have seen no evidence of any other people of color - hippies included - anywhere in the park, but pasty, chubby white children in muted polyester mini skirts and blouses or fatigued shorts and lightnin mcqueen tees.

We proceed none-the-less to the meadow where dealer upon dealer has spread out tables and canopies loaded with rocks and crystals and jewelry made from those rocks and crystals.

And booth after booth of typical junk food but worse: no barbeque but corn dogs, funnel cakes, french fries.

And white, straight nuclear families - with mean-pit-bull-looking dogs - upon white, straight nuclear families abound.

I feel our presence has been noted like an informed tsunami wave spreading rapidly across the field & I'm on high-alert.

I think maybe Jasi will be interested in exploring the mounds of chunks of earth, as he's definitely a rock-fiend, but at the first table he picks up a piece of beautiful aqua turquoise that has been shaped into a piece of jewelry: a swastika.

I ask him if he wants to return to the train and the river, which he eagerly agrees, these rocks and gems holding no interest for him when faced with the choice of trains and rivers!

We spend the rest of the hot afternoon riding the train (even though it sets me back several more dollars) and swimming, which is free!

Off into the cool early evening and a rest stop outside Jackson!