Shrimpers returned to the waters off the coast of Louisiana today.

And we took to the sea on a shrimping expedition as well, a little further up the coast in Biloxi, Mississippi.

The Biloxi Shrimping Tour is the second oldest attraction in the region; the “Sailfish” has been running tours since 1955.
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The Mississippi Gulf Coast was well into its hurricane recovery when the Deep Water Horizon exploded and oil started gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. It was a blow the struggling region didn’t need – headlines flashing around the world about oil washing up on beaches as they were getting ready to launch into summer holiday season.

Well, we’re in the Gulfport-Biloxi region now and there was no oil anywhere to be found as we walked along the beach yesterday. more…

In Ontario, I think we’re always aware of the French language. We’re located right next to Quebec and there are pockets of Franco-Ontarian populations sprinkled throughout the province. And French is on most of our products, labels, printed materials and more.

To see this in the United States is a little out of the ordinary – but it’s what we experienced today in Lafayette, Louisiana.

We found ourselves in the heart of Acadiana. That’s a region of 22 parishes (what we would call counties) in southern Louisiana that is home to the Cajuns – descendants of French-speaking inhabitants of Acadia (now Nova Scotia) who were cruelly expelled and forcefully deported from their homeland by a vengeful British governor in 1755. more…

I had great visions for yesterday – visions of lovely Natchez, of stately Civil War-era homes and of cotton-growing. But they weren’t to be, thanks to what I later discovered to be TD5.

It rained heavily pretty much from the moment we set out from Vicksburg on Route 61 on our way to Natchez. And that rain, as I learned on the local Louisiana news that night, was courtesy of Tropical Depression 5 – or TD5 for short – a weather system that luckily didn’t grow into a hurricane. Now that would’ve been a travel adventure (and a few blog posts) to remember! more…

Vicksburg, Mississippi is a town with a bloody history. As a major Confederate stronghold strategically located on the Mississippi River – the South’s major supply line – it took beating after beating as Union troops tried repeatedly to capture the city during the US Civil War.

A lengthy and brutal siege by northern forces in the spring and early summer of 1863 eventually took its toll on the Confederate forces, as well as the beleaguered townsfolk, many of whom had taken refuge in caves dug into the surrounding hills as a way of avoiding the constant shelling.

Food supplies became scarce, and by the time the city fell, the city’s cat and dog population had almost completely vanished and civilians and soldiers alike were also resorting to eating mule meat and even rats. more…

It’s Elvis Week here in Memphis – which I didn’t know when I set about plotting our roadtrip through the South. To be honest, and this is certainly a sacrilege in this town, I’m not even really that much of an Elvis fan. But I’ve always considered Graceland to be one of those “must sees” on my list of American cultural sights and attractions, sort of like the Cheers bar in Boston and Southfork Ranch in Texas.

So here we are. more…

We’re on our way south, Bill and I, on a road trip to the southern US. Today, we crossed three states enroute to our first destination, Memphis, spending the whole day doing nothing but driving and enjoying the sights and sounds of the I-75. And I-65. And I-40.

There’ll be lots to write about once we get off the Interstate but after 1,500 km of driving over the last couple of days, here are five things we’ve learned:
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I’m pretty sure I’m going to go into withdrawl.

For the last two years, we’ve been fed a steady diet of updates, polls, speeches, accusations and photo ops related to the US presidential race – and now, in a few short hours, it’s all going to be over.

It was a constant I could always count on, likely a daily soap opera with ongoing plot twists, interesting characters, heros and villains, scandal and unexpected developments. Even if there was nothing else going on, I knew I could catch the latest on the American election. Our own short campaign was hardly this captivating and the key characters hardly as interesting. more…