Most Excellent Time in Mississippi

I had a great time in Mississippi with Jason and Tiffany. I got to see a part of the country I had never been in before, met a few of Tiffany and Jason's Oxford buddies, had some great food, heard some excellent music, and generally had a good old time.

Here is a quick run down. Unfortunately it has been a week since I was there and a lot of the creative juices from the trip have already been thrown to the wind of every day existence. While in Oxford I was too busy living to be blogging and since then I've been too tired and busy with work to sit down with the computer. Here are a few of my thoughts that remain.

It was neat to see a new part of America, if only briefly. Oxford seems like a lovely university town and people are super friendly. Tiffany and Jason have made a lot of great friends and their department seems very nice.

In an homage to my mom who mainly wrote about food in her journals, let me say a little bit about the incredible food I had in Oxford. We ate a fabulous dinner at a neat local restaurant called Ravine. It is in a neat old house out in the country. We had an awesome beet and goat cheese salad, a fabulous appetizer plate thing, and an o.k. pasta and mushroom main dish. By the time the pasta came, I was already beyond satisfied with the experience so I having the pasta be only a couple of cuts above average rather than spectacular was no big deal. We also had a crazy good breakfast at Big Bad Breakfast. I had my bacon of the year and it was well worth it. The menu claimed that it was local, happy pig, pastured bacon but Tiffany ruined my parade by saying that that is only when it is available (I'm sure the pig I had was a happy pasture pig...). We had some other good stuff to eat (awesome salmon that Jason grilled), but those were the highlights.

We also went to a bunch of museums: The Mary Buie Museum, the Blues Museum, and the National Civil Rights Museum. They were all very interesting in their own ways. It was different to be in a place where the civil war had a major and obvious impact on the landscape. The civil rights museum was fascinating. It was so dense that we didn't get to see all of it in the time we had. It was located in the hotel where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. A very powerfully moving spot.

Two last notes: it was fantastic to get that much time to just hang out with Tiffany and Jason. Thanks guys. We heard some great local blues music in Clarksdale at Ground Zero, Morgan Freeman's blues club. When you think Morgan Freeman's blues club, don't let your imagination run - it is a giant empty warehouse with the walls all written on with magic markers and the tables are card tables with folding metal chairs. The music was good though.