Mississippi

Our Vicksburg RV park is owned by a casino, and part of the deal (included in the price of the already very reasonable campground) was a free buffet breakfast across the road at the casino. 

Our experiences so far of "free" stuff offered by casinos was our four-hour timeshare presentation in Las Vegas, so we were somewhat dubious about our buffet breakfast. That said, we're cheap and on a budget, so we thought we'd give it a hoon. Turned out the breakfast was pretty amazing - omelettes made to order, every imaginable type of breakfast food you could want (including M&Ms) and as much of it as you wanted! Free! Despite the fact we stocked up at Walmart yesterday, we decided to eat ourselves stupid and save our food for tomorrow, so Mark loaded his French toast with piles of whipped cream. No-one tried to make us gamble, or invest in anything, everyone was extremely pleasant and attentive. We wondered if somehow we'd slipped through their net.

Back on the road (briefly) and to Vicksburg National Military Park - another triumph of the National Park Service (if you can 'be a fan' of the NPS on Facebook, then that's the first thing I'm doing when I get home). The Park is set on the site of the Confederate defensive line at Vicksburg - its stronghold on the Mississippi, and as Abe Lincoln put it, the key to winning the Civil war. After a number of attempts to take Vicksburg failed, Gen Ulysses S. Grant and the Union forces from the North laid siege to Vicksburg from late May 1863 until 4 July, cutting off the Southerners' supply sources and gradually starving them into surrender. The Park itself is a beautiful rolling green landscape - the myriad trenches are still present but have softened in most places to gentle sloping zig-zags, leafy trees now fill the gap between each side's front line. Original restored cannons used at the battle dot the landscape, as do numerous monuments marking the efforts and lives of the men on both sides. It was astounding to see the markers for the huge number of battles and skirmishes that took place and the large number of men that were there - they must have almost been fighting elbow to elbow - and in some places the Union troops sneakily dug trenches as close at 15 feet to their waiting enemies.

We got chatting to a gentleman by the name of George, a Civil War reconstruction participant and history buff. He filled us in on some of the details and historical points and, as has been the case with every American we've got chatting to so far, provided us with a unique, honest and refreshing insight into this country. 

At the top of the Park is the USS Cairo, an iron-clad flat-bottom warship which infiltrated the Mississippi for the Union side for less than a year before it became the first victim of a remote torpedo, made of a glass demi-john filled with gunpowder and set off by the Confederates on shore. It lay in the silt at the bottom of the Yahzoo for nearly a century before it was dredged up, along with all manner of guns, shoes, medical instruments and belt-buckles and put on display. The USS Cairo is just over a small carpark from the National Cemetery of Vicksburg, where the remains of about 15,000 Union soldiers lie - unfortunately only about 12,000 are identified. Soldiers from WW1, WW2, the Korean War and Vietnam can also be found there. The cemetery is beautiful and probably worth a good few hours' of wandering on its own.

At the visitors' centre on the way out, we noticed a group of young men dressed in Civil War soldier style clothing. On closer inspection, they were demonstrating the firing of a Civil War cannon, as they do with the help of local volunteers every day over the summer - a tradition that dates back over 40 years. One very eager 11 year old was keen to fill us in on the details, called us Sir and Ma'am, and had his patter (picked up from the supervising ranger) down pat. He was so earnest and lovely - his response to the question "Are those woolen pants hot in this heat?" was about 4 minutes long, explained exactly what the pants were made of, what Union solders pants were made of versus Confederate pants, which ones would catch fire more easily and ended with "and they are extremely hot".

We ended up spending about 5 hours at Vicksburg - I'd done a bit of Civil War reading before we went and was quite excited about it (if I'd been born a boy in Vicksburg, I'd probably have volunteered to wear extremely hot part-denim, part-wool Confederate-style pants that would not catch light and fire the cannon too). It's OK though, Mark would almost definitely be a Civil War reconstructionist).

The rest of the day was spent driving the length of Mississippi - past acres and acres of rich green farmland, and pretty much no towns. What we did see at times looked quite poor, but Mississippi is undeniably beautiful. The roadkill is interesting - the usual armadillos, but also baby alligators and we also saw a coyote run across the road (he made it to the other side though). The locals here are as we've found everywhere in the South (and all over the USA) - really friendly, although the accents here are really difficult - long on vowels, short on consonants, big on attitude. We were heading to Memphis, principally to check out Graceland, so Winston's sound-system was thrashed and we covered the Mississippi Delta singing "we're going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennessee, We're going to  Graceland".

We're now parked at the Graceland RV park, on "Don't be Cruel Street" to be exact, about 20 metres from Graceland itself. The RV park loud speakers are set to the "Non-stop Elvis" station, the bar down the road is called "Heart Break Hotel" which can be found (you guessed it) on "Lonely Street".