Mississippi Valley

Last time I left you we were crossing the de Soto bridge from Memphis into the badlands of Arkansas.

Even though I didn’t see the river again for another few hundred miles you’re in the valley the whole way

Anyhow once you’re over the river everything starts to get  flat and featureless. Driving through Tennessee was beautiful and you think “ I could live here” until you remember a sizeable proportion of the inhabitants are straight off the set of Deliverance. And they live in a compound up a dirt track 2 miles from the nearest road, wear dungarees as a matter of course and have worse teeth than Shane McGowan.

Arkansas is no different

Little Rock is about 140 miles from Memphis and while the state building is impressive ….

there really is very little to see. After about half an hour driving around looking for the governor’s mansion (Clinton was still POTUS at the time) we started to head south.

I really don’t believe that Clinton would have enjoyed living in some antebellum fake Palladian place. He’s always seemed more like a man who would love a duplex on the 40^th floor of the sleaziest Vegas casino.

It was a long drive. A quick stop in a mall in Pine Bluff for a feed revealed to me that wearing urine stained terrytowelling track pants and covering your upper body in home done tattoos is not a good look for a woman.

On we go – I’m trying to drive as fast as I can just to get out of the area but it’s a two lane road so mostly I’m limited to about 80.

When we get near our destination of Vicksburg fuel runs low and I pull into a petrol station. After filling the tank I go inside to pay. There’s about 200 people in there.

What the fuck is going on here?

Apparently in the US there is some lottery called Powerball. Pays out like Euromillions and had had a couple of rollovers. But only some states sell tickets – Louisiana did and Mississippi didn’t so all these rednecks and sharecroppers had come over the river to spend the last two dollars of their welfare cheque on this shit.

The station was well organized. There was a big bit to collect money off idiots who would have been better of spending it on Pabst or the really shit wine in 10 litre boxes from California and a small section to let the three or four of us who actually wanted to buy fuel and escape from Dante’s Seventh Circle unscathed.

I have a real downer on lotteries. A ponzi scheme that attracts people who sign legal documents with an “X”

A few miles down the road I was once again crossing the river on the imaginatively named Mississippi Bridge and you’re out of one redneck state and into another (that made four for the day)

I should note here that the river is huge. I’ve never seen the Amazon or the Congo but I’ve seen the Nile, Yangtze, Danube, St Lawrence and Murray – this is comparable to any of them.

Mississippi is usually cited as the poorest US state but still has a higher GDP per capita than the UK. Vicksburg was founded in 1719 by French settlers and is a small town nestling on the east bank of the river whose population appears to be static or even diminishing Two thirds of the inhabitants are African- American and there is little of note except the Civil War battlefield historical site on the outskirts.

As usual on this trip I’d failed to pre-book accommodation and,  as you can imagine, in a small town in this part of the world luxury or even decent hotel accommodation was in short supply. Eventually we settled on a place that made the Bates motel look welcoming – at least it was only for a night. Time for dinner.

Vicksburg has a riverboat casino – like the one in Ozark but with less class. It was one of the most depressing places I have ever been in the US ( and I’ve been to places like Bedford-Stuyvesant, Compton and southside of Chicago). A large room with shabbily dressed people feeding the dying embers of their overdraft limit  into slot machines at bewildering speed. I couldn’t stand it for more than the hour or so it took to eat.

Next morning it was up early to drop in on the Civil War battlefield site before heading down to New Orleans.

The siege of Vicksburg took place in May- July 1863. Ulysses S Grant and the Army of Tennessee crossed the river forcing John Pemberton and the Confederate Army of Mississippi into defensive lines where the battle took place. The subsequent Confederate surrender on July 4 along with that at Gettysburg the previous day is usually considered the turning point of the Civil War. It gave the Union command of the Mississippi River and separated Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana from the remainder of the Confederacy.

The site today is rather like a safari park without the animals – a winding road snakes around the various important sites for several miles. There are a number of stop points where significant events occurred with information boards as well as a number of memorials for soldiers from the various states that fought ( Along with the two aforementioned there are memorials to soldiers from as far away as Minnesota, Michigan and Texas).

The Illinois memorial is one of the more impressive ones

Like all US historical sites it is extremely well maintained. The site is rolling parklands and woods but it is still possible to see where the armies built levees and to imagine how various different skirmishes offered one side or other an advantage. There are also  large cemetery areas

After an hour or two exploring it was time to head down to New Orleans. As the crow flies the shortest way is to follow the river route but in practical terms the highway east towards Jackson (state capital of Mississippi) and then skirt round it’s south to the highway down to New Orleans. The route itself is fairly nondescript until one recrosses the border into Louisiana and arrives at Lake Ponchartrain.

It’s not really a lake as it has an opening to the sea on the eastern side. It is technically described as an estuary but to me it was more like a lagoon. It’s big (40 miles wide and 24 miles long) but shallow mostly 12-14 ft in depth. It is also home to one of the biggest wetlands on the Gulf Coast and a vast array of wildlife including that symbol of the US South the alligator.

I was driving down the I-55 which skirts the western side of the Lake. It is basically a raised causeway most of the way at this point as the ground is very swampy. The road runs between Lake Ponchartain and the  smaller lake Maurepas to the west ( and their associated swamps)

(Further east is the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway Bridge which goes directly across the middle of the lake).

I remember driving along thinking at all times that within  100 yards of me was

1. Alligators
2. Someone living in a swamp side shack with only a small skiff and semi rabid dog for company, living off roadkill and speaking some kind of indecipherable Creole

Once this stretch of road has been negotiated and you’re past the lake it’s a smart left and after a few miles you’ve arrived in the Big Easy of which more in the next instalment.

Before I finish I‘ll say something serious now because I’ve been taking the piss a bit.

I have loved my time in the south of the US.

Everyone I met whether behind bars or waiting tables or just sitting next to me were unfailingly courteous, kind and generous.  The beer is good, the food is great and if you’ve got wheels it’s a great place to visit.
 

© ArthurDaley 2026