The morning after arriving from Memphis we headed off from the Terrene Landing on the bus to Cleveland, our first shore excursion.

There are 28 Clevelands in the United States. Named presumably after Grover Cleveland, twice President in the late 1800s. Quite a good stop in Cleveland. First off was the Grammy Museum, a branch of the Los Angeles institution. It is situated here in Cleveland because of its position on Route 61, the music trail from New Orleans to Chicago.

The museum documents grammy history with a mesmerising video about the Grammy Nights with excerpts from Grammy winners and their songs. The museum also tells the story of how ‘the blues’ morphed from its genesis in the slaved labour cotton fields into southern church music and finally big band music. The music seemed to seep its way up the highway. There are various landmarks along the route explaining its progress.
We then went to a rather good model railway housed in an old railway station. Amazing work and presentation. Tap the video below for all the action.

The final stop was at the museum documenting the role of Chinese immigrants in the local community. There was a tear jerker video telling the story of how two young descendants, living in LA, of a Chinese immigrant had discovered their family history at the museum. Quite a story. The Chinese immigrants from the mid late 1800s in the USA appear to have been subject to the some sort of prejudices as those in Australia at the same time. They had their own version of the White Australia policy.

Back to the boat for the sail away at 5pm and a night on board steaming down to Natchez. We had originally been scheduled to stop earlier at Vicksburg, the site of a major Civil War battle. This had to be cancelled because of water levels.

Vicksburg is located in a canal off the River and we couldn’t get up it to the landing. So it was a day of steamboating along the river. This was not a bad option because we got to see the river in daylight, the boat was to do most of the journey at night when we’re asleep.

The weather was very pleasant and we had some good views of the river banks, forests and sand bars along the way. The river flows quite quickly and is very muddy.

That evening we were entertained by a Mark Twain look a like, he regaled us in a monologue of snippets of his life. Really good stuff!

Arrived in Natchez in the early hours next morning and tied up at the landing below what is known as the ‘town under the hill’. In the old days this was the seedy part of Natchez, it is now gone having been washed away in floods. Natchez is one of the oldest towns along the river having been founded by the Spanish, before the French and later the English arrived. It was a major cotton plantation area in the 1800s.

The town sits atop a bluff with commanding views of the river in both directions, a strategic location. This was where the well to do lived.

We had a music adventure first up at the Big Muddy, a renovated Victorian era house. It operates as an inn and blues room. Quite a show was put on while we ate some canapés and sipped a Mimosa or two. Amy Allen pumped out a smorgasbord of old blues hits while thumping the piano and guitar. Best seen in the video above.

After lunch it was off to a functioning cotton plantation, Frogmore. It was formerly a slave property that has continued on to the present day. Changing farming practices along the way. Some museum pieces in the fields hark back to the 1800s, Allthego gets down and dirty picking some cotton.

The weather has been treating us kindly, sunny blue skies. The town residents though keep saying “never seen the river so low”. More about the river next time.