Mississippi – RDZ Photography

Moss Point, Mississippi – May 2019 – Gulf Coast Gator Ranch

Nature, Sciences, Transportation, Water Features

The Gulf Coast Gator Ranch is located in the swamps of southern Mississippi, near the town of Moss Point. They specialize in raising alligators for commercial use, but they also retrieve ‘nuisance’ alligators from golf courses, etc.

Their ranch is surrounded by a levee and fence to keep the wild alligators away from their alligators. Because their gators get lots to eat they grow to impressive sizes.

They lurk about in the ponds and nearby grasses.

You can buy ‘gator chow’ and throw them over the fence to the gators.

They are everywhere!

Some just hang out on land enjoying the warm Mississippi sun.

Our host, and boat captain – Captain ‘Frog’ – brought out a baby alligator for us to hold.

It was time for part 2 of our morning – an airboat ride!

Just outside their ranch we found this guy keeping an eye on us.

Fortunately he was just hanging around for a snack as well – marshmallows.

As we headed out into the swamp we passed by even more gators.

The black waters of the bayous were beautiful. Captain Frog was very knowledgeable about the plants and flowers of the swamp, and the traditional uses, as he grew up in the swamps of Louisiana. He had the perfect Louisiana accent to go with it.

We would ride for a while then stop and check out the wildlife and surroundings.

At times Captain Frog would pick up speed as we went sailing through the grasses with ease.

There is an amazing amount of beauty in the swamp.

This might look like a pile of brush, but it is an alligator nest, where the female gators place their eggs.

For good measure we passed a couple more gators on the way back to the dock.

It was great to ride along with Captain Frog – we learned about the swamp, saw lots of gators, and had a good time blasting around in the air boat.

Gulf Coast Gator Ranch is a highly recommended stop if you are in the area.

Biloxi, Mississippi – May 2019 – No Blues In Biloxi

Architecture, Sports, Transportation

Welcome to Biloxi, Mississippi.

Biloxi has to be the only town in America that built their freeway exit ramp over the beach and slightly into the ocean.

Nearby is the rebuilt Biloxi pier, replacing the one destroyed by Hurricane Katrina

Being on the Gulf Coast, Biloxi has palm trees on the beach giving it that tropical feel.

In some perspectives it feels like a beach town.

One of the more impressive buildings in town is the Frank Gehry designed art museum.

Biloxi has had a long history of gambling, and from the 1990s on large casinos were built directly on the beach.

Biloxi is one of the larger gambling meccas in the country outside of Las Vegas.

The tall hotel/casinos dwarf their small motels across the main boulevard along the beach.

But there is more to Biloxi than the casinos. The town is only a couple of hours away from New Orelans, giving the town itself a similar look and feel.

The Half Shell Oyster House not only is a great looking building, but the food was fantastic.

Nearby is MGM Park, a minor league baseball stadium for the Biloxi Shuckers – a middle tier farm team for the Milwaukee Brewers.

The name celebrates Biloxi’s heritage in the seafood and oyster industries.

The crowd was sparse for this Thursday evening game.

Their mascot is a giant seagull named Schooner.

Northern Mississippi – National Parks Road Trip – Day 22 – From the Blues to Elvis & The Natchez Parkway

History

We left our Holiday Inn Express, with it’s brown tap water behind and headed out for Rosedale, Mississippi to find the crossroads known as where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. According to this folklore, Johnson did not go to the crossroads seeking the devil. The devil was waiting for him as Johnson passed through. Johnson was greeted by the devil and his dog, and the dog seized Robert and shook him violently. When this happened, the strings in Johnson’s guitar shook and vibrated and the blues emerged from those sounds.

The devil told Johnson, “the dog is not for sale, but you can buy that sound.” Robert wanted it so badly, the deal was made. From there, he was a master. Supposedly voodoo claims, the devil always hangs close to the river. The devil was known to mark his territory with an “X” (thus the crossroads), Rosedale, is a town right by the river. Therefore, Son House (an old blues artist) believes the true crossroads that Robert Johnson sang about are in Rosedale.

Rosedale was a rundown small town with a Blues Trail marker for the Hot Tamales and the blues. The reason is that Mexicans came to the area as migrant workers incorporated their hot tamale food with the Delta cuisine. Robert Johnson wrote songs of the popular hot tamale.

In Cleveland we passed the Delta State University, nicknamed the Fighting Okras as we continued on the Mississippi Blues Trail. We so badly wanted a t-shirt with their mascot on it but were unsuccessful in finding one.

We landed at Dockery Farms, the site where it is regarded as the birthplace of Delta blues music. Dockery Farms owned by Will Dockery was a cotton plantation attracting blacks to work the farm because of the fair hand of its owner. The farm was more of a self-sufficient town of 400 tenants mostly African American who lived there for long periods of time.

Dockery had its own elementary school, churches, post office and telegraph offices, its own currency, doctor, railroad depot, ferry, blacksmith shop, cotton gin, cemeteries, picnic grounds for the workers, and a commissary that sold dry goods, furniture, and groceries.

We stood amidst some of the old buildings and a marker and plaque titled the “Birthplace of the Blues.” A gas station is at the front of the property to help spot the property where hundreds have visited through the years from all over the world. A register placed in the barn recently listed names of visitors from Italy, Germany, France, Texas, and California. One man noted in the register that he proposed to his wife at the Farm and she wrote that she said yes.

Probably not advisable for long periods, we stopped at Parchment Farms, at the Mississippi State Prison to see the marker honoring famous blues artists that were incarcerated there such as Bukka White who wrote the song “Parchment Farm Blues”.

Our next stop on the Blues Trail was at the intersection of Route 61 and Highway 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi where it is claimed by some to be the crossroads spoken of by Robert Johnson. Although other blues artists of that time claim that Rosedale, Mississippi is the crossroads referred to in Johnson’s song. Thus debate on this issue continues to this day.

There is a signpost made of guitars mounted at its top and a sign boasting the title “The Crossroads” here in Clarksdale.

We journeyed on into town and found WROX Studio headquarters. It is the first radio station in Clarksdale. Among the notable blues artists who hosted programs or performed on the air were Ike Turner, Robert Nighthawk, Sonny Boy Williamson, Raymond Hill and Doctor Ross.

Further down the road is Ground Zero a restaurant and hotel owned by the actor Morgan Freeman who hails from Mississippi. The restaurant features a stage aimed for blues artists. The restaurant was marked with graffiti over graffiti. I have never seen so much graffiti in one place but this is the theme to the place. There was not an inch of space not covered with graffiti even the toilets and the pool table felt were covered with it. We met a couple from England who spent the night there in one of the few boarding rooms upstairs who said they enjoyed it.

Amazingly as we left the flatlands near the river and headed up into the hillier areas towards Oxford. Old Miss is located in Oxford, and the small town was packed as there was a football game the next day. We had planned on getting lunch there but gave up and left for the hour drive to Tupelo, Mississippi.

Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo on January 8, 1935. Tupelo erected a statute of Elvis in his famous pose called “The Hand, “a bronze statue of a photo taken when he performed at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show in 1956. Elvis was greeted on stage by the governor then, and later was photographed reaching out to touch the hands of his fans. The bronze statue was designed to encourage people to touch Elvis’s hand as he is gripping a microphone stand and leaning forward nearly in the same spot from 1956.

Since we missed lunch in Oxford we were hungry and found Johnnie’s Diner on Main Street in Tupelo. Johnnie’s is well known as Elvis Presley’s hangout. We sat in the exact seat in the booth frequented by Elvis. Photos of Elvis covered the walls. We ate BBQ, coleslaw, potato salad and baked beans. The waitress took our photo in the Elvis booth.

As we left, an Australian pair with their American guide quickly swept into our seats to sit in the “kings seat.” We signed the register and noticed the many European and Asians who had come before us to eat at Johnnies for the Elvis Presley experience. As we were leaving, we noticed a sign that said “Elvis has left the building” mounted on the wall next to the door. We giggled at this since we have heard this line from Mike Lange, the voice of the Pittsburgh Penguins, many times when the Penguins led the game for a win.

We drove to the east side of Tupelo to see the birthplace of Elvis Presley. There is a Visitor Center on site with a gift shop, the house of young Elvis, the church where he sang gospel music that influenced him, and a tribute wall on the hill.

A British tour crowded into the grounds as we moved along with them to see the buildings and bronze statues. It was too crowded for us to tour the two room house built by his father, grandfather and uncle. We did see the outhouse that Elvis used which was quite intriguing to the busload of Brits visiting the park. The lifeline at the top of the hill also had a bronze statue of Elvis with his cape and when he was a small boy.

We left town on the Natchez Trace Parkway heading north. After a stop at the Visitor Center to collect maps, we drove to an area to see the original Natchez Trail. It was a 5 minute hike up the hill through the woods but along the trail 13 graves of confederate soldiers are buried on the trail. The National Park Service replaced the broken headstones to honor these soldiers. The names of the soldiers were once etched in the original stone but the names wore away through time; no one knows the name of these soldiers but coins lay on top of the headstones. These coins have distinct meanings when left on the headstones of the military, and these meanings vary depending on the denomination of the coin.

We went to Tishomingo, Mississippi because I liked the name and the town was also mentioned in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou. Tishomingo is actually named after a Chickasaw chief, who fought in the war against the Shawnees in the Northwest Territory and received a silver medal from President George Washington. In 1837, the Chickasaws were forced to move to the Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. Tishomingo died of smallpox on the Trail of Tears and is buried in Arkansas somewhere near Little Rock.

Tishomingo has a population of less than 400 people with only a few buildings but we noticed a store as we left town along the highway that had t-shirts, confederate flags, and flea market items for sale, which I after waiting forever for the nice southern woman with about 20 confederate flags in her store chatted with us, wondering why a couple yankees would be in that part of Mississippi. I did not tell her I was born in William Sherman’s hometown.

It was about 4 pm when we reached the Alabama state line, now we had both been in the lower 48 states. After checking into our Residence Inn in Florence, Alabama, we headed out to see the town. By far the most interesting is the original Muscle Shoals Studio at 3614 Jackson Highway.

The studio was closed and it looked as if the building was under renovation. This studio recorded many famous artists such as Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, and the Staple Singers, but a wide range of artists recorded hit songs and complete albums at the studio. They are referred to as “the Swampers” in the lyrics of “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Rolling Stones and even The Black Keys recorded their Brothers album there in 2009. The studio moved to an updated and larger facility in Sheffield in the late 1970s, but the original building is still used as a recording studio occasionally.

We drove into the city of Sheffield and found a massive aluminum rock n roll statue. Supposedly the statue represents the owner of the elderly home which stands behind it. The owner must have been an Elvis wanna-be. We had dinner at Ruby Tuesdays and ate the best ribs so far on our trip, ironically at a chain restaurant.

Mississippi Delta – National Parks Road Trip – Day 21 –Mississippi Blues Trail

History

Shortly after leaving for the day we arrived in downtown Texarkana, at the state line of the city where the US Post Office straddles the state line between Texas and Arkansas. A nice old lady who had come to pick up her mail from her post office box took our photo at the state line marker in front of the post office.

Scott Joplin, the great Ragtime artist, was from Texarkana.

Our route for the day took us past Shreveport, Louisiana, and across the northern portion of the state – completing my tour of the lower 48.

It had been a couple of weeks since we crossed that small stream that was the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota, but now we were back. This far south it was far more than a stream.

The Vicksburg visitor center, overlooking the Mississippi River, provided us information on the Mississippi Blues Trail. Outside on the property at the Visitor Center were cannons from the Civil War and a train crossing an old bridge passing a riverboat casino.

We paused for lunch in Vicksburg at Rouxater, a small cafe and bakery. We ate chicken salad sandwiches with some sweet tea. The chicken salad was not tasty and it was on stale white bread. Ugh! We went to the Coke a Cola museum next door after lunch.

It featured a soda fountain that used coke syrup to make the cola at the fountain. The museum had all the equipment from long ago to mix the ingredients. One bottle was made at a time to fill a case and then sent for delivery for purchase. Lots of other Coke items were seen as we wandered through the store as well as hundreds of old bottles of Coke lining the shelved walls. I have often heard of Vicksburg being beautiful but that day, and the places we went it seemed an old tired river town.

Leaving Vicksburg heading north on the legendary Route 61, aka – Blues Highway, we passed cotton fields on our way north and listened to blues music by B.B King, Muddy Waters and others making our way through Mississippi, home of the Delta blues. Interestingly while it used to take throngs of people to pick the cotton, as we drove we would see one lonely, huge, John Deer combine picking the entire field with one guy sitting in the air conditioned cab (likely NOT listening to the blues).

The Blues Trail led us to Rolling Fork where McKinley Morganfield, aka, Muddy Waters lived as a child. There was a bold blue marker with a small record at its peak designating it part of the Blues Trail along with a tribute guitar with Muddy’s signature and noting the town of Rolling Fork in one of his song lyrics. We saw the shotgun cabin where he lived. The term shotgun cabin came to be known from the way that a gunshot could run through all the rooms in a straight line since the rooms are stacked behind each other without a hallway and one had to walk through one room to get to the next room. The cabin was incredibly small. In fact, it was really only half the size of an actual sharecropper’s home.

Rolling Fork also had a carved statue of Teddy Roosevelt and a bear. We saw bear crossing signs in the city limits.

The cotton fields are bright white for acres in all directions as we drove on the Blues Trail Highway. A crop duster sprayed fields; it was truly amazing to see how low he flew over the crops. Huge machines picked cotton as we continued through Mississippi. Bits of cotton lined the edge of the road so I suddenly stopped the car and ordered to go pick cotton.

US Highway 61 is the famed route from the south to Chicago – making it the Blues Highway. Nearly every town along the route had some tribute to the blues.

We got to Leland, Mississippi mid afternoon to see the B. B. King Museum. The museum had a theater and a lot of history about B.B. King’s life and stages of his success. King’s real name is Riley King but he changed it when he went to Tennessee to start his career in music. He named his guitar Lucille when he went back into a burning building to save his guitar from the fire that was started by a woman named Lucille who caused a brawl between the men and tipped over the heater fuel that started the fire.

The museum noted that King began with gospel music but when his gospel band didn’t want to go to Tennessee with him, King moved there on his own. He needed a catchy name for his new radio show in Memphis: “Beale Street Blues Boy” was shortened to “Blues Boy King” and finally to B.B. King. The museum also exhibited the hard times that King and his band encountered because of prejudice and Jim Crow Laws in the south. B. B. King passed away in 2015 and is buried on the museum property.

Late afternoon found us at our hotel, a Holiday Inn Express in Greenville, Mississippi. As we checked in the desk clerk said ‘have you heard about our water here in the Delta?’. Why no – what about the water. It seems it has a brown haze to it (think Marty McFly in Back to the Future III when he is in the cabin), but they assured us it was safe, but if liked we could get some bottles of water for free – which we took them up on. And yes the water is a dirty color.

The desk manager recommended a BBQ diner called Tabb’s for us and we took off to find some good eats. We drove for a while but could not find the restaurant. We asked a man in the parking lot where we thought it should be and he said it closed down a while ago. I guess the Holiday Express needs a concierge. We drove to the end of town and decided on Revel’s Steakhouse, we both had shrimp. Our plates were piled high with so much food that neither of us could finish our meals. The rice had a distinct flavor that I did not recognize so Allison our waitress brought a sample for us to take with us. The flavoring is called Cavender Greek Seasoning and comes from the Ozark region in Arkansas.

We drove across town to see the mighty Mississippi River. The road led us to the top of the levee. The river here is stronger and wider than where we saw the trickling stream of the headwaters in Minnesota. I read a marker that noted the river rose 64.2 feet at this point in 2011 as we sat and watched the sun set on the river.