July 13 - Mississippi

We left Memphis, had lunch on the road (actually it was the Wal-Mart parking lot to be exact) and arrived in Mississippi with just enough time to unload our bags at the hotel and head on over to Cock of the Walk which is right on the great Mississippi River. Before heading to dinner we took a few minutes to take in the splendor of the river. We stood right by the Mississippi River Bridge, which connects Natchez (rhymes with matches) and Vidalia, Louisiana. The hugest river barge I’ve ever seen was moving past as we gazed down upon the river (those tiny cylinders in the picture are oil tankers). As we wondered aloud what the barge could be carrying, a woman who was jogging past gave us a quick little tour of barge shipping on the Mississippi. Just about everybody we’ve come across in the Deep South has been warm and friendly and when we tell them we’re from Massachusetts, they always ask “how do you like the weather?” (it was a balmy 82 degrees last night!) Cock of the Walk was an interesting little place. There was a story on each of our placemats and essentially the ‘Cock of the Walk’ is the strongest person who works on a ship, so given this explanation, Emmett slipped in to the chair at the head of the table and we began our feast – pickled onions, coleslaw and skillet (corn) bread were served immediately with tin plates. We had catfish and fried chicken, baked sweet potatoes and fries, hushpuppies (fried bread balls) and my favorite, fried dill pickles. There was a delicious dark pecan lager to wash it all down and plenty of hot sauce to give a little kick.