Day 5: Natchez MS -> Clarksdale MS

 Back on the road again, though the first port of call was only a couple of miles down the road; the Forks Of The Road:

At one time the Forks of the Road was the second-largest slave market in the United States, trailing only New Orleans - Wikinaccurate

Natch this ended pretty sharpish when the place surrendered to the Union.

After having a mosey around the site it was Highway 61 Revisited, northbound to Vicksburg.  As you've probably guessed, Vicksburg have a v. interesting history ect etc.  Being situated on a bluff a hundred-odd metres above the Mississippi and thus sometimes compared with Gibraltar, it was kind of important, but fell to the Union after a 47-day siege in 1863.  The site is now maintained by the very splendid and worthwhile National Park Service, with a circular tour road which takes in far more detail than anyone except the buffest of Civil War buffs could ever absorb at one sitting.

Cannons (various)

Obelisk commemorating the US Navy's role in the proceedings

USS Cairo^[1]

The Cairo was sunk without loss of life by a mine in the Yazoo River in 1862 and was subsequently raised in 1964.  And clearly gave Space Karen the inspiration for the "styling" of the Tesla Cybertruck.

This was the only sighting of the Mississippi today:

if indeed it is the Mississippi and not the Yazoo or some other upstart waterway.

Back onto Highway 61 for a while before the official Great River Road has you take Mississippi Highway 1 through the Delta^[2].  Why this chunk of alluvial plain between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers is so named is a hard one to fathom. It's pan-flat, mostly agricultural and, in these days of mechanised farming, pretty empty.  But Thee Playlist ov Doom rose to the occasion by playing Please Read The Letter from the Jimmy Page/Robert Plant album "Walking Into Clarksdale".  Tomorrow: MOAR culture...

1. Usually pronounced "Kay-ro" coz it's named for the place where the Ohio River flows into the Mississippi, not that one in Egypt.
2. The region where the Mississippi hits the Gulf of America Mexico is generally referred to as the "Mississippi River Delta" and plays little part in the history of the blues.