Monsour's At The Biscuit Co

We selected Monsour's At The Biscuit Company for lunch based on location alone. We were hungry and it right there -- on our path walking to our next destination. We were hot and hungry. Any place with air conditioning and food would have been good enough.

I ordered the Muffuletta and Sophia ordered the Jambalaya -- both New Orleans dishes. The food was good in that it met our needs for sustenance, but it came no where close to what we expected after several days in New Orleans. 

The Muffuletta sandwich tasted like a cheap bologna sandwich on white bread. There was barely enough olive salad on top to tell that it was there. This was perhaps the most expensive bologna sandwich I've ever consumed. 

The air conditioning and cold drinks in the middle of a hot summer day were a pleasure. The view of the Yazoo River from the dining room was beautiful.  The food was a disappointment.

Lesson learned: don't order Louisiana cuisine in Mississippi.

M/V Mississippi IV

The Motor Vessel Mississippi IV is a US Army Corps of Engineers vessel that served the Mississippi River Commission for over 30 years. Today it serves as a museum.

Lower Mississippi River Museum

The Lower Mississippi River Museum is a free museum operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers. It includes exhibits about the river and the Corps of Engineers' work to manage it.

People have been moving goods on the Mississippi River for centuries

Nature and flood control efforts have dramatically changed the shape of the great river

Over 2,200 miles of levees are the backbone of the Mississippi River flood control system

The Old Depot Museum

The Old Depot Museum in Vicksburg, Mississippi, contains an eclectic collection of things related to the Mississippi River and Vicksburg.  It was recommended to us by a local as a place we should visit prior to visiting the Vicksburg National Military Park -- specifically to see the overview of the territory offered by the museum's diorama of the battlefield.

The old Vicksburg train depot houses The Old Depot Museum

The museum contains an impessively huge collection of model riverboats

A 250 square foot diorama depicts the battle for Vicksburg

Deflated

The hitchhikers look a bit deflated

We found traveling on a Sunday, the day after the 4th of July, to not be all that exciting. The only establishments we found to be open were chain restaurants and stores that we could visit at home. After skipping out of our hotel before sunrise and failing to find not-a-chain breakfast options, we finally gave into our hunger and grabbed a quick breakfast at a Corner Bakery Cafe in Arlington. The day was quickly turning into a day of driving to get through Texas as quickly as we could.

Driving through Texas often provokes me to wish I had a Holtzman drive to fold Texas out of the way and instantly move from New Mexico to Louisiana.   I was hoping that one of our hitchhikers might be a Navigator and be able to help us bypass Texas. Neither of them would admit to having the hardware or intuition to get us to the east side of Texas any faster than our Ford was carrying us. As I questioned our guests and as our time in Texas wore on, they seemed to slowly deflate. Perhaps I should have gotten them some coffee when we stopped.

Given that we could not bend space, we chose to bend the rules of this trip for just this day: we got on Interstate 20 and zoomed through Texas as quickly as we could. Perhaps, some time in the future, we'll return to Texas for the purpose of exploring Texas itself. This time, Texas was mostly in the way.

Approaching the Louisiana border