No, we are not blue. Far from it.
Wednesday - We made it to Clarksdale, MS. This is one of the many places on the Mississippi Blues Trail, which is designed to bring in touristas and the wretched rabble to see ram shackled homes of the blues greats - Son House, BB King, Robert Johnson, et cetera. There are also many blues clubs that are equally authentically ram shackled. De gustibus non disputandum est.
Morgan Freeman has two places here. One is an upscale restaurant that serves quail. The other is a ram shackled place that serves sandwiches and beer by the quart to bikers and the wretched rabble. Dorothy had already planned my birthday meal and nothing here tickled our fancy, so we will eat in and rest.
Our sleep pattern remains out of whack. We were both awake this morning at 3am. Arg!
The cool evenings we enjoyed last week are gone, so we need hookups. Tonight we are parked in the county fairgrounds. Free, as there are no envelopes to put in the iron ranger.
If you know us, you know that one of our fav authors is Victor Davis Hanson. He wrote an article this week that contained this jewel.
Rural California is also like North Africa circa 420 AD: the few family farms left are mostly fenced or walled, the dogs large, the owners armed — trying to survive against organized Vandal attacks.
Regrettably I know of no one else that can make spot on comparisons with N. Africa of 420. Plus he slips into Latin as easily as I make grammatical errors. He is a joy to read, I always learn something and I regret how much I lost by just getting by.
Thursday – We drove two hours or so and wound up about 30 miles from where we started. There being no bridge across the Mississippi River for a number of miles from Clarksdale, we drove in an almost complete circle.
You will recall that cotton was white gold here when slave labor was nearly free. They still grow cotton, without slaves. Every few miles we would see a crop duster spraying the rows of cotton plants. That has always looked like fun flying to me. They pass over the crop only feet above the plants. They bounce up at the tree line and make a sharp turn, the wings nearly vertical, and line up for the next pass.
We arrived at a COE park on the Arkansas River called Pendleton Bend. W&E for $8 in a pleasant quiet setting.
Our reasons for being here are 1) It was not far from Clarksdale, 2) We wanted to paddle the yaks. 3) Arkansas Post is an historic area being that it was the first settlement in the southern Mississippi area. The Frogs were trapping and and trading with the Quapaw Indians in 1682. I will not bore you with the complete history of the area, but I have to add this one factoid. You will recall Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Two years later the US opened a trading post here, but it failed as it could not compete with private traders. Same deal now.
While the water is low we are going to try to paddle part of the canoe trail in the morning.
The Lamb Spiedino was excellent.
Friday – The paddling did not pan out. After a little over a hundred yards, water hyacinths blocked the brand new canoe trail in both directions. We tried to get through them, but it was not easy and we did not know how far we would have to go until we broke into open water. Good exercise and we saw lots of birds.
Dorothy made a fine meal for lunch and we got our first decent nap in over a week. Dorothy spent the afternoon getting organized inside. I washed the vehicles and did one repair job.
We are getting a CBS station, so Dorothy can watch Tom Selleck tonight. That always makes her happy.
We will hang here another day, as our next stop could be crowded arriving on Saturday. Weekends and holidays get in our way.
Miss Dorothy spent the afternoon moving tows around. She was handling aggregate today. Did soybeans yesterday. Having grown up on the Warrior River, I have always liked to watch the push boats work.
Saturday – A Lazy Day
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