July 19, 2005
Vicksburg, Mississippi
1,865 miles
Decision Time
We finally made it to Vicksburg yesterday. This has been the hardest week of the trip by far. Temperatures have been hitting around 100 degrees. When it gets that hot sometimes my brain feels like it is boiling. We’ve been taking a few hours off every afternoon to hide from the heat. I’m just completely smoked right now.
When we started this trip, we planned to make a decision about which path to the sea we’d take by the time we reach Vicksburg. Given a combination of safety, time, scenery, and about ten other inter-related factors, we decided to paddle the Atchafalaya River down the Gulf of Mexico. This will take us into some of the more remote bayou areas we’d miss by taking the Mississippi, have less barge traffic, and give an overall experience more in line with what we’d like to have. Kind of like taking the two-lane blacktop instead of the interstate.
Right now the weather worries have subsided a little and it looks like we’re in the home stretch. I can’t believe how many hurricanes and tropical storms we’ve already had this year. Not to jinx anything, but if the weather holds off we should be done in about 8 days or so.
A huge storm came blowing in just as we pulled up to the confluence of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers. Downtown Vicksburg is up the Yazoo a ways so we hid the canoe in the bushes and hiked in. This wasn’t the best place to hide the canoe but we planned to pick it back up after going to the post office for our maildrop. That was mistake number one.
The little hike turned out to be a few miles. It was far enough to not want to go back to the canoe, so we just had the clothes on our back and a small bag of personal gear.
We walked downtown to the visitor’s center and asked about motels.
The lady gave us the name of the casino and another “more economical” motel up the street. When I asked about the cheaper place she replied “Well honey, you’ll just have to see it for yourself.” A southern lady never badmouths anything outright and we took a hint. We didn’t have to be talked into an all-you-can-eat buffet. The casino it was.
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