Haven’t had many appointments to keep over the past month, so when I told Layne I’d meet him at 630 I was super anxious about being there on time. It was 54 miles, and I paddled the first 42 in 5 hours….daaayumn thas fast. I was quite early, by about 2.5 hours, but thats more than alright.

I walked around the downtown area and got a feel for the place. First thing I noticed…hills. Hills are pretty unusual for the delta region which is as flat as northern Indiana. I learned from Wikipedia that bc of the hills, during the Civil War Vicksburg was an impregnable fortress and the Union could only take it by siege (starving them out). But Vix fell on July 4th and bc of this the city did not officially celebrate Independence day until 5 or 6 years ago! Wow! The fall of Vicksburg and then Gettysburg were the turning point for the Union.

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HILLS

HILLS

Yazoo RR Station

Yazoo RR Station

Downtown area

Downtown area

So I chilled at a bar and had a beer and a burger waiting on Layne. All the shops downtown close at 5pm, which is oddly early if you ask me. But I asked a rando on the street why and she said it gets pretty bad crime-wise downtown.

So Layne picked me up at the ramp and we went to his parents’ place. They are all incredibly intelligent people and very welcoming in bringing me in for a night. Layne’s mom made sure I’d gotten my fill of lemon pound cake and his dad just became a certified civil war historian on the Battle oF vicksburg–so I was really interested in that. The Indiana regiment that fought there is responsible for the term, “the whole shebang”. They were little caves they built. Hoosier soldiers were also big on coffee apparently, its a thing.

But after I’d learned all this my dad gave me a call and told me my great great great someone, named Zachary Kelley, was one of the Confederate soldiers who surrendered here. And I thought I was just going to get pizza in town, haha. Turns out I learned a bit too.