Life in Vicksburg

Greetings from Vicksburg! Tonight I am staying up at Matt and Angie's to take care of the kitties and the garden. Angie has been having some garden trouble, which makes her very sad because she ordered some heirloom seeds from Thomas Jefferson's garden, but the plants haven't been doing very well. So, my self-given mission while Matt and Angie are gone is to save the garden. :-) Since Angie drives one-and-a-half hours to and from work every day, she doesn't exactly have time to go pull all of the grass out of the garden, so I'm going to do a bit of weeding while I'm here, and we'll see if we can't get things perking up a bit.

Today has been a really fun day. I drove up Highway 61 and stopped in Port Gibson to eat lunch at Grant's Place again--that funny little "home cookin'" restaurant. The food today was great!! I had sirloin tips in gravy over rice, along with some greens and some fried okra. It was some seriously tasty Southern cookin'. Then I continued on up to Vicksburg and fed the kitties, then headed downtown. I love downtown Vicksburg--it's a very charming place. I went to this cool antique store that I discovered here last October, then I went to the Old Courthouse Museum, then I went to a bookstore next to the Coca-Cola museum (which I think I'll visit next week), then I went and had BBQ ribs at a downtown BBQ joint that some people from Memphis opened up. The ribs were great!!! Then I walked along the river and decided to drive through the Vicksburg National Military Park. I was excited that the gates were still open when I got there, and I was hoping to have a nice, leisurely drive through the park while the sun was setting, but when I got out of the car at the Illinois monument, a Park Ranger pulled up and told me that they were going to close the gates. :-( So, I started driving away, and then he started honking at me. I thought he was mad at me, so I was super scared, but then he pulled up and asked which park I work at. I then realized that I had my uniform hanging up in the back seat (since I'll be going straight from here to work on Friday), so I told him I work in Natchez. Luckily he wasn't mad at me, but I think he thought I was a little doofy because I kept getting lost trying to get out of the park. :-) It's got a lot of little roads, and this was only my second time actually driving through the park, so you have to give me a break! It was really nice out this evening, and there was even a little breeze blowing so it wasn't tooooo hot.

Now I'm just hanging out with the kitties here at the house. They are quite distraught that their mom and dad are gone, and they're not too sure if they like me or not, but since I do give them food, they at least tolerate me for now. :-) I think they will start warming up to me after a few hours. The newest kitty, Cali, is at the vet for the week getting de-clawed, so the other kitties are quite content. They still don't like Cali very much--especially Samantha, so she seems very relieved to get a vacation from Cali. Pitty-Pat has always liked me the best of the kitties, and Mosby has always been the most shy, so we'll see if they all decide to come out and chill with me. Tomorrow I'm planning to do a little weeding in the garden in the morning, then I'll head up to Rolling Fork and on up to Greenville, so it should be another great day!