Blogs from Mississippi, United States, North America

3/12/2012 The way HOME………Over a period of three days……Sydney to Los Angles 14 hours……….Los Angles to Nashville 3.5 hours…….Nashville to Tupelo 4 hours. We had the best welcome home in Nashville from Ollie, Eric and Sydney. They greeted the weary travellers at the airport. Ollie was very excited about his new kangaroo toy. We spent the night at their home before heading to Tupelo. In Tupelo we were greeted by a WELCOME HOME sign on our garage door. So…….the trip is complete, it was the BEST and we have a lot of wonderful memories (Beware we will bend your ear given the opportunity!).... read more

So it’s up early, farewell to downtown Memphis and off to the Hertz office to pick up our car. I was slightly bracing myself for a bit of a heated discussion as we’d booked through an internet site as it was so cheap and most importantly we didn’t get charged a ‘one way’ fee for picking up in Memphis and dropping off in Nashville which seemed unusual but there it was in black and white on the paperwork ‘no one way fee for this rental’. Can’t say it plainer than that. But I was still half expecting a bit of a kerfuffle about it. However, good old Hertz were as good as gold and we even got a bigger car than we’d booked so the other worry about the size of our cases fitting in the ... read more

The other day I drove down from Memphis, TN to Jackson, Mississippi. I was on a literary journey to visit the home of the famous writer Eudora Welty. The road down there is Interstate 55. It is one long, straight, and incredibly boring highway of mostly black tar. I say mostly because in some stretches it is worn down to a Georgia red clay color with only a hint of its former blackness. The only visual distraction this time of year was field after field full of fluffy, white cotton ready for harvesting. The speed limit is 70 and everyone pretty much goes closer to 80 especially the semis. The road is full of semis as it is a straight shot down to New Orleans. I was speeding along trying to get something decent on the ... read more

Some very nice time in the Great Smoky Mountains meant that we needed a decent drive to make Charleston that night. As a drive it doesn't really rate against many we have done previously but we did leave ourselves with a trip of a little over 350 miles late in the day. The rain that turned up after we came through the mountains into North Carolina developed into a substantial downpour as we moved south. We decided to stay on the inter-States. Less interesting but, with the weather as it was and darkness upon us for a lot of the trip, it really didn't matter. There may be more of these sorts of trips over the next month as the need to set priorities and keep more closely to a timetable hots up. Just a month ... read more

Day 2 of our trip down to Louisiana and no music today - but lots of history. Driving through more farming country we saw lots of mainly uninhabited sharecroppers’ shacks. Sharecroppers were really only one step up from slavery and life was tough. Mechanisation eventually took the place of manual labour and I guess people migrated to the cities to find work. We also saw some places where original sharecropper shacks have been updated slightly (air-conditioning installed etc) and people are flocking to rent them for a holiday. One place near Clarksdale called the Shackup Inn holds regular Blues festivals there so it’s very lively but others are in the middle of nowhere and have nothing to do but relax or fish. First stop today, Vicksburg which has lots of Civil War history. The old court ... read more

5 of the Sullivan siblings got together yesterday but this morning Robert arrived at Gwen & Larry's house, so all 6 managed to be in the same room at the same time. Many photos were taken to mark this significant (if somewhat formidable!) gathering, and there was a great deal of laughter to be heard. All except Darlene headed up to Raleigh, Mississippi (a 3-hour drive) in separate cars for an equally amazing gathering of descendants of the previous generation of the Sullivan clan, i.e. Pat's father and his 6 siblings. The event was hosted by Eileen, a local cousin of Pat's. A total of 58 people attended, including 16 out of the 22 living first cousins - an amazing turnout. We stayed overnight at cousin Susan & Bruce's house 9 miles from Raleigh, where they ... read more