Jackson, M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I

Every time I type the state name I can’t help but sing the spelling to myself. And I’ve never typed it so many times as these past few blogs.

Anyway… about our time here in Jackson…

Working on the Road

Jackson is the first city we’ve attempted this mobile working thing. This is a big piece for us.. we can talk all we want about how great working on the road will be and we can test hotspots all we want, but until it’s real, we don’t really know what it’s like or how well it works.

There’s a table that goes in front of the couch that we’ve never even put up. It’s now Mike’s workstation. Mike feels like he has enough space to spread out the things he need and a comfortable spot to sit at, yay!

Here he is on his first day of workin from the Vegas.

We have multiple hotspot options available to rotate between as needed. He used a combination of our Visible phone hotspot, our T-Mobile hotspot, and his own iPhone hotspot all week, depending on what worked best that morning.

There was some trial and error, some frustration, and maybe even some cursing (shocking!), but Mike was ultimately able to connect to what he needed all week. He made it to every virtual meeting (about an average of one per day), and felt good at the end of the week about how it had all gone, overall.

Patience and flexibility are the name of the game for sure. We are hoping we can make it work with what we have, and this week made that feel possible. But we shall see what next week brings. We know eventually we may have to bite the bullet and get something fancier and more expensive to get us more consistent wifi. But if we don’t have to, we don’t want to.

The City of Jackson

Being on the road and Mike having to work throughout the day is an adjustment for us. We usually have more time to go out and explore when we are traveling, since it’s usually been done on vacation time. Or of course the trip we took last year where we both quit our jobs to go… sadly, that’s not the long-term reality for us yet. This was a good start to figuring this out as a lifestyle. We still got out and about enough to see the city of Jackson, enjoy some local food, find some weird stuff, and know that we would like to come back if we were passing through.

Jackson actually feels quite small when it comes down to it. It’s the capital city, and the population is over 160,000, but it feel little. There’s not a lot as far as areas to find restaurants/bars in, but it’s got some interesting stuff to see. Here are some things we did/saw:

Sightseeing

We stopped by to check out the Mississippi State Capitol Building.

And the Old State Capitol Building, now the Old Capitol Museum (it’s currently closed for repairs). This was the capitol from 1839-1903.

The Mississippi River Basin Model was the strangest thing we found in Jackson. Luckily we came across it on one of the “must-see” lists we looked at. This is a 200 acre model (yes, it’s actually that big) which was in operation from 1949-1973.

The model was built in part by 3,000 Italian and German prisoners of war from 1943 until 1946, when they were repatriated. POWs were housed at an internment camp nearby during that time. The construction continued until 1966. It started operating in 1949, but parts were added over the years.

The purpose of the model was to plan for flood control as a result of the 1927 Greenville, MS flood. The model represented the river basin from Omaha all the way down to Baton Rouge and Tulsa all the way over to Louisville. It contains eight miles of streams.

All of those facts blow my mind. Definitely Google it to read more!

Today, it’s mostly fenced off, overgrown all around it, and hidden in the back of a park with no signs telling where it is. We followed the map into this empty — also kinda eerie as fog was setting in and no one was in sight — park and drove to where it said the model was. There was nothing there except a fence that we figured it must be behind. We parked next to a fence opening and went walking. And, what a treat!

I don’t even know how to describe this thing. Concrete slabs contoured to replicate the Mississippi River Basin for as I far as you can see. I took a million pictures… I wanted to give the clearest idea I can of what it was like.

We found an old staple spot to eat one night (see below) and it was in an area of Jackson called Little Harlem. There’s little else open around there, but here are a few pix we got.

While stopped to take one of these pix, we saw a car trying to turn around. The driver accidentally drove right into this big hole. When Mike ran down to help push the car out, I snapped a pic. The roads in Jackson are AWFUL. And we live in Detroit, where everyone is pretty sure the roads are the worst anywhere. Well, Jackson was as bad, and maybe worse. They were so terrible in some spots, it was unbelievable. This was not the worst of the roads we saw by a longshot, but the only car getting stuck by them. Ha!

Eating

My favorite meal was from Roosters in the Fondren District. It was SO GOOD!! I had the Hot Hot Fried Chicken Sandwich. It has coleslaw, pickles, and Monterey Jack. The chicken is a sweet hot, like Nashville hot chicken. YUM! Mike had the chicken tenders, but “hot hot” style, where they toss them in the same stuff my chicken had. He loved his too! We had fries and red beans & rice for sides. Mmmmmmmm….. Roosters is a smallish place with a super friendly and helpful staff.

Mike says his meal at Roosters is tied with his meal at Pig and Pint (he LOVED both), also in the Fondren District. He had baby back ribs. I had pork belly corndogs. Our sides were mac and cheese and baked beans. I enjoyed my meal here, but that chicken at Roosters… YUM. Pig and Pint has a lot of outdoor seating, and some that’s partially outside, and no indoor seating. The partially outdoor seating is covered with windows all around; about one in three windows is just screened. Thankfully there are some heaters on the ceiling helping keep it warm-ish. Usually, the weather here probably makes this great, but last night it was only in the mid-30s when we ate there, so we were a little chilly.

And perhaps our most notable meal, but least favorite, was at Big Apple Inn. This place has been open since the 1930s and it’s known for tamales and pig ear sandwiches. Mike, being the “when in Rome” type of guy, tried a pig ear sandwich. I stayed safe with some tamales, which were good. The pig ear sandwich was… different, according to Mike. Not a bad taste, but a weird texture.

Camping

The campground was GREAT! Mayes Lake Campground is inside of LaFleur’s Bluff State Park. Sites are big, it’s very campground-like rather than an RV park (which we stay in too often out of convenience of finding open all year and having hookups we need).

I even went for a couple runs on the nature trail. Years ago, I got into running and it was such a great way to exercise. I haven’t truly run in years… and it was painful and slow, but I did it. I’m attempting to get back to making running a part of my routine. Fingers crossed I keep up the motivation!

Here are a couple pix from my runs… I just loved these trees.

Vlade loved his walks in this campground. One walk I took him on was dry to begin with, then it started to rain. He started running from spot to spot to get away from it. And then ran us right back to the motorhome door. He said, “Thanks for walk, but I go in now.” Apparently he’s not a fan of rain. Ha!

The weather was beautiful Monday. Sunny and 70 degrees! Tuesday was cloudy, but still warm. Wednesday and Thursday brought us a lot of rain. Thursday and Friday both had highs around 37 degrees. It was still warmer than up north, but we would’ve loved more sunny days.

Here are some more shots of kitties and of a rainy day. I might take too many pix of these guys, but don’t expect me to ever stop. Look how cute they are!

And That’s About It

And one more weird thing on our way out of the area. This is/was Margaret’s Grocery and Market in Vicksburg, MS. It was a store once, and Margaret’s first husband was murdered here. Then later she and her second husband made it a church.

AND, here is the map we’ve been filling out as we travel. We outline and label each state that we go to together (not if only one of us has been there)… Now that we got to Arkansas and Mississippi, there’s only North Dakota and the NE states left out of the contiguous US!