Sat Oct 25   … Clarksdale to Indianola and New Orleans.

Good to be in Indianola

Convenient Parking at BB King Museum

We packed up early and were on the road by 8:30am heading to New Orleans via Indianola (BB King country) to check out the BB King Museum. It is so exciting being here in the heart of the Mississippi Delta… being in the area where the blues was born and raised! It is so flat and the landscape is overwhelmingly rural with field after field of cotton… it looks like fields of snow and the cotton balls blow around and look like snow on the side of the road. Miles and miles of flat fields. We chatted about the plight of the slaves and questioning how human beings so recently in our history could enslave a whole race and keep them from being recognized, even as citizens, until the mid 1960’s. We have received nothing but kindness and friendliness from everyone we have encountered down here. It truly is a complete cultural change, and we love it.
The people are generally warm, friendly and caring, regardless of their skin colour.
Anyway we arrived at the BB King Museum at exactly 10am when they open, and managed to park right on the street in front of the building… perfect. The tour of the museum started with a short video giving much of the life history of this amazing musician. By the age of nine his father had left and then his mother died. His grandmother and various aunts cared for him but he was basically on his own. The great adversity he faced throughout his young life and the kind and generous man he has become, is inspiring. 

BB's Sharecropper Home

Anyway we wandered for 90 minutes around the museum… watching videos, seeing various artifacts from his full life and learning more than we ever knew about BB’s life. We bought the DVD “The life of Riley” – he was born Riley King.

The story behind "Lucille"

We learned how he became BB and what it stands for … look it up or take the trek to Indianola, Mississippi to find out!!
The Museum was well worth the extra time getting there instead of going directly to New Orleans.
We continued our journey for an additional six hours passing through the delta and into Louisiana and arrived at Pontchartrain RV resort and Marina at 5:30.  Looks like a great place but VERY dusty!! We had a bite to eat and checked out the brochures to decided what we want to see while we are here for the next 3 days / 4 nights.

Bridge into New Orleans, Louisiana from Mississippi