Your mind plays funny tricks on you when you’re driving to the crossroads anticipating a meeting with the devil to talk about selling your soul but the Ipod is on shuffle and The Lady is in her environment driving like she’s been the Devil’s chauffer before and knows all too well how to find our destination. I’ve spent the last week in Mississippi for Thanksgiving with The Lady’s family and we’ve been living in an old shotgun plantation house on an old cotton farm and right now I should be thinking about our upcoming meeting but my belly is full from a great meal at Delta Bistro and I’m relaxing enjoying the ride. The Alligator Ravioli on a bed of organic white beans is something to be raved about but I was absolutely floored by the art hanging on the walls. It’s rare to find so many works in one place that you can’t stop looking at. The collection is a mixture of pieces from the owner, Tayor Ricketts, her husband, and many modernists from Memphis, Jackson and the Delta. Their collection is better than a majority of the gallery’s I’ve seen lately. If you want an excellent meal, I suggest the wild boar and beef three bean soup, with great art to look at by all means check them out in downtown Greenwood. Once we get to the Crossroads in Clarksdale, MS, the exact place where Robert Johnson sold his soul and started the blues, I am disappointed that there is statue marking the spot and a Sonic across the street. I was hoping for 4 dirt roads coming together with nothing for miles except cotton fields but at least The Lady and I have done plenty of back roading and seen tons of places like that in Sippi. Needless to say the devil wasn’t around looking for any souls and I have a sneaky suspicion it’s because it was happy hour at Sonic and he was ordering Cheddar Peppers and a sour cherry slushy. We decide to visit downtown Clarksdale and see what was up….not much on this Saturday but they have a blue festival every year and it’d be jamming then. Morgan Freeman owns a restaurant named Madidi and another place called Ground Zero Blues Club where if you’re lucky Mavis Staples will be playing and she’ll sing Down in Mississippi. For us it was a sleepy mid-day Saturday and we were lucky to find a custom T-shirt shop called The Latest Craze where we made some shirts and talked with the owner who is sick of making T-shirts after doing it for 26 years but he helped us out in a nice southern way. I didn’t ask but I’m guessing the owner hasn’t found the devil either and if he did he’s sore he only wished for a T-shirt store that would out last every other business in downtown Clarksdale. Sometimes people are short sighted. After all that we hit up Stone Pony for a small hand-made pizza, a couple jco’s, and a long island ice tea. All that was very nice and on the way out of downtown we briefly stopped by Cats Head a local gallery/art/music store that is full of stuff you’ll want to buy and I’ll be back to pick up a piece of my own on my way back to Cali. Unfortunately that’s still a long ways off and worse I have to drop The Lady off tomorrow and go at it alone for the next stretch of work. It will be a lonely drive but Georgia calls again and I just downloaded Old Crow Medicine Band and the Wagon Wheel goes on and on. Rumor has it the Devil went down to Georgia so I guess I'm hot on his tail and as soon as I cross the state line I'll be on the lookout.
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