Tuesday, May 6

Woke to birds and beautiful day here on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi.  We continued up the trace and stopped at a few of their many pull outs.  First we went to Owens Creek Waterfall, which wasn’t much due to the water table falling and lack of rain.  Still, as Greg said, it’s the best waterfall we’ve seen this trip. :)

Stopped at Barnet Reservoir – no lack of water here! – with lots of fishermen.  Then stopped at a Cypress swamp with huge bald cypress and tupelo trees.   A little buggy, so we walked fast rather than going to the insect spray.

 We have been listening to Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer on CD, as we will be in Missouri in a few days. 

Exited the Natches Trace Parkway and headed west, back towards the Great River Road. We paused at the Blue Front Café in tiny town of Bentonia – one of the first and oldest “juke joints” in Mississippi  where many well-known blues  musicians performed. The sign on the door said to call Jimmy if you needed him, but there was no one around.

Next stop a slightly larger town named Belzoni; the self-proclaimed "Catfish Capital of the World”.   Lots of painted catfish throughout the town, including this one in front of the fire station.It took a while but we finally found the Catfish Museum and Welcome Center where we watched a short film about Catfish and talked with the lady who ran the place.  She and her husband used to be catfish farmers.  This is where farm-raising catfish started back in 1965, and in 2013 they harvested 10 million pounds!   Diane made a phone call and arranged for us to go to a hatchery and fish ponds for a visit.

  

First we went to The Varsity, a small restaurant (and probably the only restaurant) in town for some, what else?, catfish.   There were about 8 other customers  scattered about who were amused when I took a photo of my lunch.  “We don’t take pictures of catfish ‘round here.”    Topics ranged from Houston and Dallas – way too many people – to catfish, cooking, the recent tornadoes with appropriate dramatic stories, and one man who explained that Mississippi gets a bad rap because of the racial problems of the 50’s and 60’s, but everyone gets along now.   When we left, you’d think we’d been friends for a long time with all the good wishes and nice to meet ya, come on back, safe travels, etc.

On to the Catfish Hatchery where  the manager, John Addison, was in the midst of creating hybrid catfish by mixing eggs from female channel catfish with sperm from blue catfish.  He said the hybrids are much healthier but the two species won't mix naturally.  He showed us the development of the eggs, which will hatch in about a week. 

They keep the fry for another 5-6 days before distributing them to the ponds.  The ponds are several acres each in size and are 4-6’ deep.   He works 3 farms which cover 1700 acres and produce about 8 million fish.The fish are processed nearby.  This was a great economic boost for the area which was one of the poorest in Mississippi.

 

We headed west from here, back towards the Mississippi river and Greenville.  Their welcome center was nice, with displays and information, and after driving through town for a bit, we decided to spend the night at the Welcome Center.  Nice treed area,  nice deck with electrical outlets and WI-FI, and 24-hr restrooms.  Very few visitors after 5:00, so we had the place mostly to ourselves.