Nathan
and I recently returned from a whirlwind camping adventure in the
South: 13 days, 13 states, 3,400 miles driven. We tried new foods:
alligator, grits, etouffee, jambalaya, gumbo. (I should clarify that Nathan
tried new foods and I tried tiny bites of his adventurous entrees.) We
saw sugarcane and cotton being harvested, drove the Natchez Trace
Parkway on a lonely Mississippi morning, cheered on the Bayou Bengals at
Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, rode on an airboat and on a steamboat
and soaked up the abundant local color of the South.
You
could go on an entire vacation just visiting literary landmarks of the
South. But I suspect that that itinerary wouldn't really fly with
Nathan, though we did make a few stops at literary landmarks at my
request. The best souvenirs are books and I love buying books in symbolic places. I came home approximately 8 books richer!
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| At Square Books in Oxford, MS. I'm holding my purchases: Delta Wedding by Mississippi native Eudora Welty and Dr. Zhivago by non-Mississippi native Boris Pasternak (oh, I crack myself up. This is not funny unless you know about the content and history of Dr. Zhivago. Even then it may not be funny except to me. :) ) |
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| Inside Square Books. |
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| Rowan Oak, Faulkner's home, Oxford, MS |
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| Evangeline statue, St. Martinville, LA |
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| At Evangeline-Longfellow National Historic Site, St. Martinville, LA |
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| Faulkner House Books, New Orleans, LA. Cute bookstore at the location where Faulkner rented rooms in the 1920s when he was in his twenties. |
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| Booker T. Washington symbolically lifting the veil of ignorance from the black race. At Tuskegee University, AL. Bought Booker T.'s Up from Slavery here. |
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