Southern Road Trip Part 2: Mississippi

As is said in Part 1 of our Southern Road Trip, Tim and I left Ty with Grandma and Grandpa for a few days while we headed to Mississippi and Alabama. Tim received a grant to do some economic research by collecting information from different counties in these states. I went along for a few days as his research assistant. 

Our first stop was in Vicksburg, MS where, conveniently, my friends Amelia and Jon recently moved. We spent the night with them (after a delicious southern dinner of fried catfish and other fried foods). The next day, Tim went to do work and I did some sight seeing with Amelia. First stop was the Vicksburg Battlefield.

 We watched the video about the battle at the visitor center then took off around the battlefield.

The battlefield road was several miles long, so we drove until I got carsick. We also stopped off to see the Cairo, a ship sunk during the battle, which was found just about 30 years ago (bottom left picture below). There were also some nice views of the Mississippi:

 

 After lunch and some shopping, we visited the Mississippi River museum and learned all about the river (and Jon's job!)  They had some fun hands-on activities like the one below where we got to carve out our own river path.

Amelia took me down to the river murals which depict some of the local events throughout Vicksburg's history.   She accurately described them as reminding her of the Pawnee Murals from Parks and Recreation (though quite less violent). It was kind of funny because it was true!

 

 Ty is really into red cabooses, so I took the opportunity to climb on this one as I missed him.

We finished in Vicksburg with this beautiful view of the river and bridge.

That night, Tim and I headed to Jackson where we celebrated our trip with a good old Mississippi Mud Pie! After a good (humid) morning run, we spent the next day researching at the state archives (top right picture below). It was high security in there, so we couldn't take pictures, but it was fun for me to start my journey into history! We barely made a dent in the microfilm before they closed and we then walked around the city.

After Jackson (Tim would go back later), we headed south for a few county records. Our first stop the next morning was at the Jones County Courthouse in a cute southern town called Ellisville. We asked for the 1890's Justice Court Dockets and the ladies working gave us a funny look and said "You're going to have to look in the dungeon." She then directed us to the dark and dusty/creepy third floor attic of the courthouse where we were left to sort through books (see the two bottom right pictures below). We found it! The ladies downstairs were surprised to hear this. They told us to check in with them every once in a while so they knew we were okay! It was like a fun treasure hunt!

  Work went quickly, so we drove through the town. I loved this church.

We headed to Meridian, MS for the afternoon, but I didn't get any pictures. We found the archives and book we were looking for, but it wasn't as helpful as we had hoped, so we took off to our next adventure...Alabama!