We go to the edge of the Missipi and a push barge going downstream is our first picture of the day.
We are on our way to explore Port Gibson.
We need sour cream for dinner and the 2 grocery stores are M and M's and Piggly Wiggly.....also looking for wine and there are only 2 'package stores' but neither have any Franzia Merlot....not wine drinkers in these small southern towns....beer and Southern Comfort maybe?
We see colourful murals across from the city hall depicting the civil rights boycotts of the 60's and then today, employees, both black and white, in the Piggly Wiggly discussing the news item about the mother that dressed her 7 yr old son in a KluKluxKlan outfit for Halloween. How do they feel about something like this in 2013? Is it still a common occurrence? We are strangers in a strange land and sometimes we can only quietly observe, although I would like to ask the questions.
We have been welcomed by all people, no matter what colour. We are listening to the old blues music as we travel and we hear their music even when they speak.
Now we have left the Delta Blues trail behind and have entered the history of the Civil War.
Port Gibson, along with Vicksburg and Natchez played vital rolls in their attempts to keep Ulysses S Grant and his Union Troops from taking control of the lower Mississippi. After the Battle of Port Gibson on the 1st day of May, 1863, which lasted until 5:30pm, Grant and his Union troops moved on to Grand Gulf winning the battle and occupying the town as a supply depot for the ongoing campaign against Vicksburg.
We are camped at the Grand Gulf Military Park. It has a small campground, a museum, some artifacts and is all that remains of the town of Grand Gulf, which at one time was a bustling port of 1000 people. Yellow fever epidemics, tornadoes, a changing of the direction of the Mississippi, the final destruction by Grants troops and the town is only a distant memory.
We have toured old churches, antebellum homes, civil war battle sites, grave sites and the "historic", aka "old part" of Port Gibson.
During the Civil War it was a regular practice for Union Troops to burn towns and cities that they had defeated, as in 'Atlanta burning' in the movie Gone With The
Wind. Grant has been recorded as saying "Port Gibson is too pretty to burn" so it's many beautiful homes and buildings have survived.
We are recommended to the "old Country Store" for a lunch of southern fried chicken. It is a 130 year old wooden structure that was once a popular stop for purchasing everything from cotton to work boots. Today it is a combination second hand store 'where everything is for sale and on sale' and a chicken buffet. The owner, Arthur Davis, makes his chicken as he was taught by his grandma. He serves his chicken fresh, hot, well seasoned, crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside. Add some mustard greens, macaroni and cheese, dirty rice and sweet tea and according to the brochure 'you'll have memories that'll last longer than the length of your trip'.
He visits the tables and breaks into song about hot mamas and corn bread. He has a few lines that he uses pretty regularly. The food is good, but his pricing is a little on the sly side, which you don't know until the bill is presented. I guess we are paying for the singing and the uniqueness of the place.
Unfortunately it leaves a little sourness after a great blackberry cobbler with ice cream.
It's hard to get motivated after a big lunch but we continue our day of site seeing. Our next destination is back to our camp site area to look at all it has to offer. Driving in yesterday we had seen a sign for the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Plant but didn't look any further as we were focused on finding our camp spot. Today we went to the plant for pictures. I have never been that close to anything nuclear. It is a little disconcerting to see the size of it but I guess they are a fact of life here in the US with their need for power for the country.
We are bushed and make a pretty feeble attempt to tour the remains of Grand Gulf.
It's 3:00 and we have been on the road since about 8:00 this morning. The first hint of the rain that is predicted hits the windshield. Bob hooks up the RV ready to move on in the morning. The warmth of the south is hitting us. 77 degree high today but it has a humidity to it that you can almost taste.
The landscape has changed from wide open cotton fields to a more dense, closed in feeling with huge oak trees that have long strings of hanging moss, trees where the branches don't just grow out from the trunks but hang and twist like vines. A lot of Kudzu that grows up the tree trunks, along power lines and telephone poles and covers the hills like a blanket. "The weed that is eating the south".
We are coming into the steamy, warm gulf area and I'm not sure if I will like these kind of temperatures. It's one of the reasons I like Arizona so much, the dry wide open desert. I will keep an open mind and after today's muggy heat tomorrow is predicted to be a lot cooler. It is after all the fall going into winter season.
Tomorrow we continue south along the last section of the Natchez Trace Parkway
For me its like the trip to the Yukon, you can't be here and not be changed by your experiences with the places, the cultures, the people and also the food, lol. Louisiana here we come...shrimp, gumbo, zydeco music and whatever else they have to delight us. Bring it on!
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