Oh Them Cotton Fields

So far, everybody who asked us where we're from, which is everybody we meet, actually knows where Holland is. Several have mentioned wooden shoes.

So what happens when wooden shoe folk hit the Deep South?

They take pics of all the wooden houses with ironwork in Nawlins and eat yambalaya.

Then they take pics of every plantation on Plantation Road and eat Gumbo.

Then they take pics of cedars growing in lakes and eat gator.

Then they drive through the Mississippi delta (if you ever get remotely close to Indianola, visit the B.B King museum!!), and while they recognize the corn, which we grow, too, they wonder about the low, leafy plants in quite a lot of fields.

The museum was educational in this as well.

Yup, that's what cotton plants actually look like at this time of the year. We only saw them in school books and then they had balls of cotton on the branches.

The flowers are seriously pretty, though. A beautiful ivory-cream, and some of them are in all gradations of pink. So yes, we did stop the car, got out, and took pictures. There were not many drivers on the road, but the mirth of those that passed us was unmistakeable. (That's another amazing thing: the emptiness of your highways!)

Well, those drivers have something to talk about on the long winter nights. And if they ever make it to Holland, we'll just smile at their reaction to windmills.

Also, we bought a lovely little Christmas tree decoration in the shape of a littke angel with a ball of cotton for a body (proper cooton, textbook cotton, cotton that the folks back home will all recognise at once).

And we spent a day in a share-cropper's shack. There is a hotel that consists of a group of them. There is airco and a fairly simple shower but the rest of the place is pretty much as it was then. We spent the day on the porch, reading, resting, and watching them cotton fields.

Current location: Heartbreak Hotel, Memphis.