Starbucks - The Long Way Around

 I don't buy fancy Venti double mocha, half caf skinny with caramel lattes at Starbucks or anywhere else for that matter.  However, I do love Starbucks Decaf Sumatra coffee ground for my espresso maker.  Don't judge, I just love the taste of a full bodied, robust, dark coffee (straight up black with no sugar or cream) but can't tolerate caffeine.  Actually, any caffeine ingested causes me to shake like I have a severe form of palsy.  So Starbucks Decaf Sumatra is my go to.  I was getting perilously low on my stash and needed to refill within a day or two otherwise I might go into conniption fits.  Thus a plan was launched on a Starbucks run for coffee.

Our closest Starbucks is 1.6 miles.  Well, that's not much of a scooter ride now is it?  Instead of taking the direct route we chose to make a big loop around Tupelo before hitting the Starbucks store.  How big of a loop?  We ended up riding about 55 miles on lovely rural roads.

The temperature was in the high 80's with high humidity but that's typical for here.  Actually high 80's felt good compared to 90's, lol.  We left home right after lunch and planned several stops for various Motorcycle/Scooter Tag games that we are playing.

First stop was in a church parking lot to get a photo of Main Street.

Tag grabbed and it was off to the next potential tag grab.  We meandered on small country roads turning here and there until we ended up in Verona, MS for a Welcome To sign another tag grab.

As we rode through the tiny berg of Verona we came upon a great little park featuring a Train mural and a wooden replica train.  This was a very cool place to take a gander and riding into the gravel/grass area was a total no brainer on the scooters!

Who knew Elvis Presley's parents were married in Verona?  I sure didn't 😄.  A tiny little park but packed full of good stuff.  Here is a wooden replica train that I thought was so cool.

And a nice information sign to tell us about the replica train.

And, if you turned the other way you would find this awesome train mural!  

Pretty impressive that  "The Rebel" traveled through Verona twice a day from 1938 to 1958.  Wowza!

Since I had grabbed the "Main Street" tag I need a new tag to post.  I chose the replica train or a train mural (your choice) as the next tag in the game I'm playing.

Back on Verona Main Street I spied a Flamingo.  Eric was playing a tag game that required a photo of a Flamingo with your bike.  He scored on this!

Easing out of Verona, Eric spied an antique gas pump and decided to leave me up the road at a pull out in the shade to go back and get his gas pump photo.

Another cool tag grab.  We scootered on several more miles when I saw a side road and said, "Hey, let's turn here!"  So we did!  What a great road, all shady and 35 mph speed limit with lots of twists and turns.  It was fun to see the redneck boneyards with a Southern Mansion next door, hahahahaha!  If I get brave enough some day I'll photo the redneck boneyard next to a mansion!  Just don't want crazy dogs and peeps getting too excited and pointing shotguns if I stop and photo their place - ya know?

We ended up at Tombigbee State Park so we took a cruise through the park!

A very well done, nicely laid out park around a reservoir.  We stopped for several photo opportunities!  We didn't go to the office to pay the park fee because we figured we were just going to ride through and directly out with no plans to stay to play or picnic or camp.  A Park Ranger passed us twice and just gave a wave so we decided we were a-okay to do what we were doing!

Here is a photo from the main parking lot near the Park Office.  The lake is much larger and what you see is simply a finger of the lake.  They had several fishing piers as well as picnic areas.

They also had some really cool functional art pieces which as it so happens was another of Eric's tags!  Cowboy and Indian designed for children to climb and explore!  Tag grabbed 😃.

A couple of close up pics of the Cowboy and Indian.

Another tag that Eric was seeking was a tent and well, heck, what did we find at a state park/campground but a tent!  Go figure, hahahahaha.  Actually, it was the ONLY tent there.  We saw maybe half a dozen camp trailers but only one tent.  For the most part the park was deserted.

Another tag grabbed!  It was a great day for snatching up those moto tags!

Leaving the state park we went on a round-a-bout route on very small roads.  We ended up going about 5 miles in the wrong direction when we finally found a main road but a quick stop at a Dollar General and a poke at the GPS got us turned in the proper direction.

Now our goal was Starbucks!  We actually have two Starbucks in our little Tupelo town.  We went to the far one and discovered it was drive through only.  Eric went to the drive through only to find out they had no Decaf Sumatra!  YIKES!!!!!!!!  Total bummer, dude.

So heck, we headed home.  We were both a bit hot and sweaty (yummy, huh?) and ready to get home to cocktail hour.  As we scootered toward home Eric took a detour to the other Starbucks, the one that is just over a mile from home to see if he could score some coffee for me.

Guess what?  Success!  He was able to purchase my beloved Decaf Sumatra coffee!

I'm a happy camper!  We had a lovely ride and discovered new to us roads and explored the Tombigbee State Park.  We scored all of our tags and just had a great little scooter ride.  I did have the Laminar Lip on my windscreen but I'm going to hold judgement or comment until I use it a little more.

I'll just close here with this awesome image at Tombigbee State Park.  Hey, scooters are fun!

Thanks for following along!  Hope to post more adventures soon.  Actually, we might have a plan for tomorrow.......

Cheers,

Cletha

PS - I always ask Eric to read and edit my blog before publishing.  He often picks up on things I missed on spelling or whatever.   Today after perusing my blog he said I was a "Country Girl".  Huh?  What do you mean.  Apparently I spelled decaf as decalf!   Hahahahaha, I love cows and yes I am a Country Girl.