15th – 19th Oct
The city of Memphis is jammed into the south west corner of Tennessee and the urban sprawl spills over the border into Arkansas to the west, where it becomes West Memphis and into Mississippi to the south, where it becomes Southaven. We headed south a few blocks and within minutes we crossed into Mississippi, and so began one of our most anticipated sections of this year’s journey. The Mississippi Delta.
After all the excitement of the past few days we needed a bit of down-time so we only drove a leisurely 35 miles to the town of Tunica, and booked two nights at the only type of RV park that exists in this town: one attached to a casino. Tunica used to be one of the poorest towns in the USA until someone had the bright idea of building six or seven casino hotels nearby. These are legal in Mississippi as long as the land of the casino borders the river. Now Tunica is no longer so poor. The casino RV parks are cheap, well maintained and very handy for gambling, eating and drinking. The one we chose, The Hollywood, had the added bonuses of being less than 1/3 occupied, it bordered a nice golf course, had the use of the hotel’s indoor pool and most importantly: had a fabulously cheap laundry. Sometimes it’s the little things….
Two nights became three as it was so peaceful and we had time to kill. It rained a bit. We swam. We did 27 loads of laundry (give or take). We only lost $50 in the slot machines. Once it stopped raining we went for a wander. There was nothing to see except another casino hotel with its own RV park. We concluded ours was better and came home again. Our route brought us to the edge of a cotton field. It is such a familiar material but I had never seen it up close and growing before. Just like cotton wool. Who’d have thunk it?
Fully rested, fully clean and with savings mostly intact we hit the road again and continued south. This was a rare day. A day that I managed to wrestle the drivers seat from Hampson and be captain of the ship. It’s not that I don’t enjoy driving or that I am no good at it, it’s just that Hampson is an insufferable passenger. He gets bored, and is overly ‘helpful’ with the process of driving. We usually stick to our strengths. He drives and I let him.
We spent the day wafting down Highway 61 and then the the old Highway 1. It was flat as a pancake, and surrounded by fields and fields of cotton in various stages of harvest. There seemed to be more churches than homes and a level of rural poverty that we haven’t seen up until now. The history of slavery marinates this area and after a century and a half since its abolition, its descendants live with its aftertaste. The Delta gave the world the Blues, born from the songs the slaves sang to ease their misery. Considering this road follows the Mississippi fairly closely we didn’t clap eyes on it once all day. This is because it is hidden behind a massive levy. 1927 saw a catastrophic flood of tens of thousands of square miles of land bordering the river, the level of which rose to 10m above it’s usual level. This saw a massive movement of refugees and was the trigger for a lot of the migration of black people up to the northern cities like Detroit and Chicago. The levy, and lots of subsequent tinkering by the Corps of Engineers, has helped prevent a flood of this magnitude happening again.
Our journey took us through a town called Clarksdale, a hub for a lot of music, but still a poor town with its associated problems. We quickly bailed on the idea of stopping for lunch here after turning down a dodgy back street looking for a diner, coming up against a low bridge and having to escape via a smaller dodgier street. So much for trying to eat local.
Our next roost was at a park between the towns of Greenville and Lelend. It was a residential trailer park which had a few spaces for touring RVs. As we pulled in we hurriedly decided amongst ourselves that we would only stay one night rather than the planned two. It felt a little odd. Not rough. Just a bit odd. Also, it was in the middle of nowhere with no options for walking or biking anywhere. Of course it was fine. The park was quiet and orderly and the bathrooms (always a good barometer of quality) were lovely. But the next day we rolled onwards.
Now Leland is ‘famous’ for one thing. It is the birthplace of Jim Henson. Creator of one of the biggest influences of any American or British human born in the 60s and 70s who had access to a TV, The Muppets. He moved away from here pretty early in his life, but Leland has labelled itself the ‘birthplace of Kermit the Frog’ and even has an unofficial museum to commemorate this moderately fabricated fact. When I say museum, I mean it has a small wooden building at one end of the town, filled with some photos of Jim and numerous Kermit effigies, manned by a slightly batty (but very pleasant) lady who insisted we had our photo taken with the frog himself. We didn’t argue.
About 10 miles down the road from Leland is the town of Indianola which is firmly on the tourist map by virtue of the fact that it was the birthplace of, and now the site of the eponymous museum of Blues legend, BB King. This is a fabulous place with its exhibits intertwining the history of slavery, the civil right movement and history of Blues music with BB King’s own life story. He truely was a son of Indianola, returned every year for 40 years to perform a free concert for the townsfolk and was a great benefactor to local causes. On his death, at nearly 90 years of age, his funeral cortege travelled from Memphis back to Indianola to lie in state. Highway 61 was closed to all other traffic for the journey and his body lay in state in an old cotton gin where 5000 people paid their respects. This gin (a big shed where cotton was historically processed to remove the seeds) was the first place BB ever worked as a teenager, and is now the site of the museum. His grave site is also here. He was a supreme talent and seemingly a thoroughly nice bloke. With a greater appreciation of the Delta and the Blues we hit the road again.
Just north of our next stop, Vicksburg, we stopped at the Winterville Mounds. There is a whole trail of these up and down the Mississippi and they are mounds. Built by various generations of native tribes to live upon, and around. Handy if you live in a flood prone swamp. Some are big, some are small. Some are preserved and open to the public. Some are overgrown with trees and shrubbery and are on private land. One was mildly interesting. We don’t need to see any more.
And so to Vicksburg.
Keep them coming! Love all the history. 😍😘