Jackson

We drove into Jackson. The weather was beautiful, crisp, clear, sunny and not too warm.
Jackson is the State Capital of Mississippi. However, like Frankfort in KY it is not too big. It does however have two Capitol buildings. The older one was replaced in about 1920 because of structural problems and water damage as a result of a passing hurricane and it having been outgrown by the administration. Rather than knock it down, they have developed it as a museum about itself! It also tells the story of how the elected houses work. It was very interesting. Before we went in we needed lunch, so I just stopped a random guy, who was photographing the building. We started talking and it turns out that his family had made the lime that was used in the mortar when the original capitol was built in the 1840's. He also directed us to Hal and Mel's, a bar round the corner in an old warehouse, where you could get great seafood. We had a very pleasnat lunch. Sally and I tried Gumbo for the first time. It is a spicy soup of shrimp and chicken and vegetables poured over rice (at least this one was), which we had with a crawfish (freshwater shrimp) Po Boy (open sandwich). We loved this - also loved the restroom which was done out as a graffiti style tribute to Elvis, with lots of quotes about Elvis drawn on the wall (if you can't beat them join them must be their motto).

While we were in the museum, there was a rowdy group of kids from a high school. One young lad held the restroom door open for Sally, which was actually a corridor. He then had to go to the next door to help Sally into the restroom, whereupn he was liberally chastised by one of the girls for going into the ladies restroom. Once we got talking it was great fun. They were amazed that we would come all the way from England to see Mississippi (they were from, what looked to be a poor part of, Columbia, MS), but they told us of their trips to Las Vegas, Atlanta and one had even been to Italy, though he couldn't remember much about it.
After our trip into the Old Capitol, we found a lovely little coffee shop and had a great cup of coffee (Sally has now taken to drinking coffee American style, black with cream and sweetners, which is great as it is a lot cheaper that the capuccino style she has drunk in the past.
As it was our anniversary, we stopped on the way back to the trailer for a steak at a Logan's Steak house. We had a great day and finished it with a romantic stroll down to the lakeside as the sunset ofver the lake (See pics on previous posting)