(An early addendum to this post; I wrote most of this on September 14th but I have been tackling the GRE so I have devoted 0 minutes to blogging. My apologies for the disjointed post. Lesley will be taking over for the next few backdated posts and you will hear from me again once I have managed to secure a spot in a highly touted graduate program.... we hope.) Okay, sometimes plans don't always work out the way you think they will. For example, when you have a family trip planned for Arkansas on a lake and a little canoe trip down the Buffalo and it turns into a trip closer to home fishing in the Louisiana marshes with alligators and Cajuns but at the last minute a hurricane shows up and tells us that we should probably change our plans again. Well, this happened and we ended up having our little family vacation right here in Jackson, MS. Ross, Newt, Kristy, Lesley, Jane, Tucker, Juel, Trout, Baker, and me all coming together to ride out Gustave and try to find something interesting and different to do at the same time. The vacation started a couple days before the hurricane hit but just far enough out that New Orleans and southern Louisiana were being evacuated. Newt, Kristy and Trout showed up from the their home in New Orleans right after Ross drove in from Montana. Pizzas were enjoyed and ideas hatched about what we could do to entertain ourselves for the next few days. After a good nights sleep and a wonderful breakfast we decided that we would have lunch at Cool Al's. (These are my biscuits and they're awesome.)
Cool Al is a Jamaican who makes hamburgers. In fact he is listed in the book "1000 things to do before you die" as a must do, well, before you die. So we made our way to his restaurant and discovered that he made 16oz hamburgers. That's right hamburgers that are 1 whole pound, and for the low price of $5 you couldn't go wrong, you couldn't eat the whole thing, but you couldn't go wrong.
He also specializes in veggie burgers and has won a PETA award for them. As a side note on the way out of the restaurant we saw an elusive urban tumble weave. That magic piece of hair that has gotten away in search of a better life.
From Cool Al's we made our way to the Natural Science Museum to see the wildlife and hike around by the Pearl River. While at the museum we watched a couple snakes eat whole fish.
I should mention that this was also Kristy's birthday so we had a birthday meal for her as well at a great Italian restaurant in Ridgeland . Newt may have been bested by the impending hurricane , as far as birthday surprises go, but he did manage to bring a few surprises to Jackson with him to surprise Kristy on her birthday.
(I know you can't see it but Newt is wearing a T-Shirt that says "Make Wetlands not War" with a picture of some cattails growing in an old army helmet. I thought it was a great image) The next day we all decided since the hurricane was eminent (and we could see the clouds swirling) that our best bet would be to head further north up to the Delta in search of BBQ and Blues. We didn't find much in the way of BBQ but we did find Kermit the Frogs home and a piece of "food" called the BBQ Ripper.
The BBQ Ripper didn't really have BBQ and really it was just a two foot long hot dog with baked beans on it. The real find was Tamales. I have heard that Tamales were invented in the Delta, I informed the informant that tamales were in fact invented by the Aztecs, that is to say the word came from an Aztec word that means "wrapped food". Any who.... the African American tenant farmers working side by side with Mexican migrant farmers adopted the food and it is now a Delta Mississippi staple. The tamales were good and it made the whole trip worth it. We made it home just in time to watch the hurricane start to role in. The next morning it was raining and a little breezy, the power even went out for a little while, so we packed up and headed out to see if we could find any treasures at the "junk shops". A few trinkets were found so I guess the excursion was a success. The last night of the vacation catfish was in order so we went to Cock of the Walk to enjoy the fried fish and watch the hurricane rage, or not, outside the window at Ross Barnett reservoir.
A long story short; we may not have had canoing on the Buffalo, or fishing in the marsh but we did experience a little "regionality" in our own backyard here in Mississippi... and the hurricane didn't kill us. (This is me saying good bye, Lesley will be writing for awhile and I'll see you guys (Y'all) later)
Cool Al is a Jamaican who makes hamburgers. In fact he is listed in the book "1000 things to do before you die" as a must do, well, before you die. So we made our way to his restaurant and discovered that he made 16oz hamburgers. That's right hamburgers that are 1 whole pound, and for the low price of $5 you couldn't go wrong, you couldn't eat the whole thing, but you couldn't go wrong.
He also specializes in veggie burgers and has won a PETA award for them. As a side note on the way out of the restaurant we saw an elusive urban tumble weave. That magic piece of hair that has gotten away in search of a better life. 
From Cool Al's we made our way to the Natural Science Museum to see the wildlife and hike around by the Pearl River. While at the museum we watched a couple snakes eat whole fish.
I should mention that this was also Kristy's birthday so we had a birthday meal for her as well at a great Italian restaurant in Ridgeland . Newt may have been bested by the impending hurricane , as far as birthday surprises go, but he did manage to bring a few surprises to Jackson with him to surprise Kristy on her birthday.
(I know you can't see it but Newt is wearing a T-Shirt that says "Make Wetlands not War" with a picture of some cattails growing in an old army helmet. I thought it was a great image) The next day we all decided since the hurricane was eminent (and we could see the clouds swirling) that our best bet would be to head further north up to the Delta in search of BBQ and Blues. We didn't find much in the way of BBQ but we did find Kermit the Frogs home and a piece of "food" called the BBQ Ripper.
The BBQ Ripper didn't really have BBQ and really it was just a two foot long hot dog with baked beans on it. The real find was Tamales. I have heard that Tamales were invented in the Delta, I informed the informant that tamales were in fact invented by the Aztecs, that is to say the word came from an Aztec word that means "wrapped food". Any who.... the African American tenant farmers working side by side with Mexican migrant farmers adopted the food and it is now a Delta Mississippi staple. The tamales were good and it made the whole trip worth it. We made it home just in time to watch the hurricane start to role in. The next morning it was raining and a little breezy, the power even went out for a little while, so we packed up and headed out to see if we could find any treasures at the "junk shops". A few trinkets were found so I guess the excursion was a success. The last night of the vacation catfish was in order so we went to Cock of the Walk to enjoy the fried fish and watch the hurricane rage, or not, outside the window at Ross Barnett reservoir.
A long story short; we may not have had canoing on the Buffalo, or fishing in the marsh but we did experience a little "regionality" in our own backyard here in Mississippi... and the hurricane didn't kill us. (This is me saying good bye, Lesley will be writing for awhile and I'll see you guys (Y'all) later)
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