Good Times!

Any time spent with Angie and Matt in Vicksburg is sure to be a good time--which it was indeed yesterday. On my way up to "the Burg," as it is affectionately known among the rangers, I took the Natchez Trace to Port Gibson. I had always been kind of afraid to try to cruise control feature of my car, but as I was driving along the Trace, I realized that this was the perfect place and time to try cruise control, so I did. You see, the speed limit on the Trace is 50 mph, and with it being a Thursday morning, I was the only one on the road, so once I figured out the cruise control, it was so fun to just let the car do the driving (don't worry--I still did the steering). Cruise control is kind of like autopilot--except that you still have to guide the car where you want it to go, but it was very helpful because sometimes it's hard to stay within the 50 mph limit on the Trace. It's such a pretty drive that your mind wanders, and then you look down and you're doing 75! So cruise control helps prevent unintentional speeding.

Once I reached Port Gibson, I decided to stop and have lunch at this place called Grant's Kitchen (named after U. S. Grant himself). Located in a brick complex with a laundromat, the restaurant looks pretty ghetto, and when I had driven past it before, I had thought to myself, "Don't think I'll ever be eating there!" But, one day I was talking with Ranger Sharon, who used to live in P. G., as she calls it (which is funny because that's what we call Pleasant Grove at home), and she told me that Grant's has really good food. I was super hungry, so I decided to give it a try. It was a funny little place, but I had an awesome cheeseburger and curly fries. On the outside of the building, the words "Good home cookin'" are painted on the bricks, and that is exactly what they have there at Grant's, so I was glad I stopped there. After lunch I drove over to Grand Gulf, about 15 miles west of P. G., and had a fun time looking around there. The photo at the left was taken atop an 80-foot observation tower from which you can see clear out to the Mississippi River! It was an awesome view.

After Grand Gulf, I took continued on the rest of the way up to Vicksburg and had fun at Angie and Matt's house. I'll admit that I have a lot of books--probably too many--but my collection pales in comparison to Matt's Civil War library! He seriously has more books than anyone I've ever seen. Every time I go to their house, he has some new set of books to show me. This time it was a 24 volume set called "Confederate Veteran." Matt had to stay and watch the Orioles game on TV, so he didn't go get sushi with Angie and me, but she and I had a good time at the Chinese restaurant, and we took some kung-po chicken home for him. The last time Angie and I tried to get sushi, the Chinese lady at the restaurant said, "Sushi man vacation Hong Kong!" But luckily he was there yesterday so that I could experience sushi--Southern style. It was pretty good. This morning Angie and I got up early and drove down to work, then I spent the day working at the Johnson House. I also had to drive over to Vidalia to take a picture CD to Van the Photo Man. The park is having some professional prints made of the William Johnson house, and I was commissioned to head-up the effort, so now I've got Van all set up with everything he needs to he can print the pictures, we'll get 'em framed, and we'll be good to go. Oh, today is Friday the 13th isn't it! I didn't have to worry about that because I already had my Friday the 13th on Monday :-)