A View From Above. . .

I just returned from a nice weekend of cooking, eating, drinking and general laziness in Houston with Beatrice, The Scrabble Champion (damnit!), and I thought you guys would like to see Mississippi from a different perspective. From 10,000 feet above.

Here is the Mississippi River just above Vicksburg complete with barge traffic.

And the dual bridges that traverse the Mississippi at Vicksburg. The darker bridge is the "Old River Bridge" which is currently being rehabilitated. Sections of the concrete deck are being repoured for what reason I have no idea. It is my understanding that the bridge will never be reopened to vehicular traffic. I guess it'll become a giant foot bridge.

Attached to the south face of the bridge is a rail line, which back when you could still take the old bridge over to Delta, Louisiana made for an interesting, white-knuckled ride when the train passed.


And the Ross Barnett Reservoir and Pearl River just above Jackson. 33,000 acres of open water and another 17,000 acres of park and recreation area surrounding the reservoir.

My grandfather and my father completed the centerline profile of the dam back in the 50's when it was truly a deep and dense swamp. My father always remarks about how big and thirsty the mosquitoes were down in the river basin and all he could think about was getting back to school, flying right, making good grades, etc. Anything beat doing hand auger soil sampling during the heat of the summer.

Hell, he never straightened up. Slacker! And with that being said, it just occured to me that today is Dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad!!!!

Looks like I'm going shopping.