Home ·· News Room ·· Prints ·· Licensing ·· Gallery ·· About Us ·· Contact Us ·· Articles ·· Services Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana road trip report, January 1 to 8, 2007 Updated January 10, 2007 Page 1 of 5 Next page
	Download the whole report in Acrobat PDF   Mississippi, Alabama and New Orleans © 2007 Aaron Linsdau Editor: Alfonso Limon Monday, January 1, 2007 Happy New Year! We woke up at 4am, after getting to sleep at 10pm at Alf's place in Pomona, so the morning was a bit rough. Got to the airport in plenty of time and as I had our boarding passes printed out the day before and we cruised right on through. The TSA stole Alf's toothpaste as it exceeded the 3.5 oz max capacity. Jelly explosives are carried by all Mexicans, right? I emptied my 0.5L water bottle and put it in vertically into my backpack and cruised through without detection -- it was empty, so I was prepared to argue. Filled it up at a water fountain and saved $3. Not big bucks but big satisfaction. That's sad... We had a half hour delay due to fog. No problem as we had a good safety window of time in Houston. The announcement at Houston airport about, "You'll be arrested if you joke about bombs..." isn't exactly friendly. In fact, it's down right draconian. I'm glad there are plenty of unelected people running a bureaucracy so they're all accountable and can't be fired. New Orleans airport security area is small, so don't wait until the last minute to get there. Picked up our Sebring convertible and headed over to New Orleans. We ate at Fish and Burger just down the street from the airport. Alf had an excellent catfish and I enjoyed a huge hunk of blackened fish - very tasty. We were hoping not to get too worked on the food and for once, we didn't! I was happy for the $13 food and drink. I couldn't even finish the meal, which was excellent. Now it was time to decide where to go. We narrowed our choices to Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi pretty quick. The next question that faced us is which direction to drive. Based on the AAA guidebook (book of knowledge), Mississippi is less likely to have a lot of material to miss and we didn't want to blow out of Alabama in a rush to find little in Mississippi (as it turned out, our assumption was wrong but the direction chosen turned out fine). I love flying on a plane and not knowing where to go, read about the place on the way there and then having a good time on the trip doing it. We've achieved the arrival in location part and the vague plan on the fly, now finding the good time is the goal. Wonder if we chose the right places to visit. We'll find out. We drove out of New Orleans to Natchez, Mississippi via Baton Rouge. We stopped off in Baton Rouge to purchase some gut expanding road snacks. Being two sort-of white guys, we quickly noticed we were the only white guys in the entire neighborhood. Welcome to a bit of culture shock. The girls at the gas station were very nice, so we hadn't stumbled into too rough of a neighborhood. We aren't in California any more, Toto. We drove to Natchez, Mississippi and found a Day's in for $55 with a AAA discount and here we are at 7:30pm. I could have used my AARP card, too. Yes, I have one due to a mailing error several years ago. Tuesday, January 2, 2007 We woke up to a cold morning at the Day's Inn in Natchez. I managed accidentally locked myself out of the room after getting ready and getting papers out of the car. Alf was taking a shower, so I just went to enjoy the good continental breakfast in the lobby. There were some nice people to chat with, so the time passed quickly and Alf showed up a little later. I not present to defend the room meant that the over eager cleaning lady came in as Alf was finishing his shower, so he provided some early morning California trauma. Thankfully Alf had dressed a little before coming out so it wasn't a full Monte. I had a good laugh. We didn't get rolling until 10:30am, way late for making a trip across the state. On leaving Natchez, we drove to see the historic house district with a good selection of antebellum and Greek revival style homes. We didn't take any tours of the homes, just some tourist shots, as most of the homes were closed today and it didn't matter anyway. The first 70 miles on the Natchez Trace Parkway was pleasant with few cars passing in either direction. We saw the second biggest Indian burial mound in the country. The mound was truly enormous, about 20 feet tall and had a top area of nearly 8 acres. That was a lot of dirt to move with sticks and woven baskets. Stopping to read most signs along the Natchez Trace, the new road following the old and ancient path from the Colonial and Indian eras is interesting. The original path is a road grooved nearly 30 feet into the soil in places. The driving road is slow going, so we arrived in Vicksburg around 3pm. We ate at Whataburger, with burgers prepared exactly as if it were home made, it was good but the fries were not hot. A medium drinks was a whopping 32 oz. Got love-handles? We departed the Natchez Trace to run a country road over to Vicksburg and enjoyed seeing confederate flags under US flags. Many of the houses were surprisingly nice. There were a few shacks but they were the exception. The battlefield of Vicksburg National Memorial is huge. The driving loop around it is 16 miles and took two hours to explore -- moving quickly. The USS Cairo, an original sunken U.S. river gunboat was closed, due to President Ford's death remembrance, but you didn't need an up close look to see how large the craft was. The visitor's center was also closed in remembrance of Ford. I need to get myself a government job. Canons and overgrown trenches with exploded mine pits abound at the monument. There are countless stone monuments to the men who fought and died there. To read even a small portion of the signs and check out the visitors center requires a half day at least, to avoid being in a rush. Sunset visited us as we were driving the I-20 into Jackson (Mississippi's state capitol). The airbag warning light in our battle wagon kept beeping at us in our superior Chrysler Sebring convertible with the loudly whistling cloth top. After happening across an Enterprise rental car place, we learned that unless the car has developed a disabling mechanical problem, a different rental group in another state won't swap the car. We got the guy's card so we could defend a scream-fest later if need be. Alf asked me to remind him not to buy this car in the future -- I completely agree. Alf had cranked his neck out before leaving California, so by this time the liver killing Advil wasn't helping him. Spotting a Hooters, we figured a little beer therapy would help. We enjoyed a mostly liquid supper, chatted for a while and headed off to find lodging at 10pm. Heading down the I-55, we spotted a Red Roof In, but it took several miles of confusing exits before we were able to get there. Finally sleep, sort of... Wednesday, January 3, 2007 Was it the tractor trailer gunning its engine at 3am, or the car with the squealing belt at midnight? Perhaps it was the loud girls coming back from a night of drinking or the crappy pillows? Or, the coup de grace, the poltergeist room that kept going from what seemed like 90 degrees to 60 and back every half hour. We headed over to the Waffle House to enjoy some plain food, as I had a beer morning stomach. I had a tasty pecan waffle while Alf punished his stomach with greasy hash browns and a breakfast burrito. Eat the food from the place; don't eat your home food away. It was all good for me except for the smoking in half the place. We headed back to the Natchez Track Parkway from Jackson to continue heading up the state of Mississippi. This is a beautiful, rural drive, fully isolated from the neighboring cities and highways, giving you a modern taste of colonial travel, stopping every few miles with historic markers, Indian burial mounds, section of the old trace (road) stomped 30 feet into the earth, old ferry crossings and so on. Our first stop was the Ross Barnet Reservoir. I wandered around shooting while Alf drove back a few miles, desperately seeking a restroom it seemed the breakfast burrito was not up to par. The air had a cool, Southern winter bite, enough to see your breath but not cold enough to make your hands numb. Next page
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