THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA

We made a brief overnight stay in Leland just out of Greenville Mississippi on our way up to Little Rock, Arkansas, where we were heading to catch up with an old school friend.

There really isn’t much I can say about the Greenville area, apart from it is very very depressed. After spending so much time in places that are thriving and alive and then to arrive in Greenville. Again I am surprised like so many other cities we have been to, that there is no one around. The streets were empty. The place seemed more like a ghost town and even the Casino car park was empty! It was an unnerving feeling driving through the town.

Suffice to say we were pleased we were only on a night stop over as there was nothing we wanted to see here (apart from the steak restaurant Doe’s Eat Place, which was made famous for being a favourite of Bill Clintons). It was a wow moment. In the 1940’s the building was a blacks only honky tonk, with great food, in particular their steak. It was close to a carriage stop and so was discovered by a small number of white doctors and lawyers that would be served out the back. Before they knew it there was a full on restaurant at the back of the building. Still today when you enter the Restaurant, you enter through the kitchen and the seating is out the back. Old and disrepair is an understatement. Lets just say if it was in New Zealand it would be closed down. The menu is a hand written piece of paper on a clip hung on the wall. They are reknown for their steak and the pricing was around $US75 for a 2lb steak which would easily feed 3.

Believe me the look and state of the restaurant, so fitted with the rest of the town, yet you couldn’t get a table without booking.

The drive up from Natchez and then on to Little Rock was through the Mississippi Delta, through miles and miles of fields of cotton, soya, seed corn and the further north also rice. The flatness of the land makes it so easy to understand the constant flooding problems they have through this area. We were constantly being reminded of this as there were numerous signs on the way asking Trump to help finish the building of pumps that may alleviate the flooding problems in the lower part of the Delta.

The devastation that the constant flooding causes to the many buildings and lives of those living here, can be easily imagined as we drove through the area. But on the flip side, what fertile land this is. The crops as far as the see can see are flourishing.

Although as we were traveling through miles and miles of soya bean crops, we could only shake our heads and have sympathy for the farmers who through no fault of theirs, are now not allowed to sell too China. We wondered how they and all the small surrounding towns that support the farmers will survive the year and what will happen to this years crop.

But on to Little Rock

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