Day 17 - 1st November

Today we visited the Vicksburg National Military Park, with particular attention paid to the USS Cairo, the first Ironclad ship in the Union Navy.  It was sunk in December 1862 and stayed underwater until it was found and then raised in pieces in 1964.  As much as possible has been restored, and what was unsalvageable has been reconstructed so that you can get an idea of the size and layout.  It was actually pretty cool being able to see through the structure – much more interesting than I expected.  Mind you my expectations weren’t that high J

After that we mooched through the main street of Vicksburg and popped in and out of a few interesting shops, eventually stopping for lunch at a very hard case café with a couple of old guys playing chess.  Unfortunately our accents stick out like a sore thumb and we are asked all the time where we are from.  In this case, as soon as we said NZ that lead to a memory dig form the old guys trying to remember what snippets of knowledge they had pertaining to NZ.  They knew we had a big bird that is now extinct (moa) but then got confused and started referring to Maori as moa’s, which required a small correction !

Stinking hot today, and after lunch we had a brief stop at the toy and doll museum, which was a pretty ramshackle setup but did have a huge range of dolls and various old toys, often pristine in their packing and probably good collector’s items.    The old guy behind the counter who took our $3 entry fee was a Korean and Vietnam vet.

We wandered down to the river – here in Vicksburg it’s the Yazoo river, a tributary of the Mississippi, where they have a really long concrete wall with a whole bunch of really good murals that depict the history of the town.  Due to it’s height above the river, it was a very strategic site during the Civil war, plus it has also been a refuge during floods.

Tonight we had dinner at Rusty’s River Grill, I had the gumbo which was very nice but also filling,  plus fried green tomatoes.  Turns out these are actually pretty tasteless and it’s only the sauce on top that adds flavour.  This was a kind of hollandaise with crab chucks – yummy.  Joe had Cajun blacked fish and fries.  Then came dessert, Joe had Peanut butter pie, which was ENORMOUS and I had Mississippi mud cake, layers of chocolate cake glued together with melted marshmallow and topped with thick chocolate icing.  Delicious, but also ENOUMOUS and way too much.  I had to admit defeat and get a box “to go” for the rest.