The Vicksburg Trip -- Day 1

We needed a few days out of town and decided to head north to Mississippi and visit Jackson and Vicksburg. The latter is about 290 miles northwest of Pensacola and the drive takes about five hours.

Mid-morning we took the cats to the pet hotel and set out on our way. Much of the route is not on Interstate highways but the secondary roads were good and there was little traffic.

We spent the first night in Jackson. It's about 40 miles east of Vicksburg. We wanted to drive around the city on Tuesday morning before we drove over to Vicksburg. Jack is an alumnus of Millsaps College in Jackson and spent many years in the city a while back. This trip will be my first visit ever to Vicksburg and Jack hasn't been there for more than 40 years.

We had a great steak dinner at Ely's Restaurant & Bar, located in Ridgeland, just north of Jackson. There were Lebanese touches to some of the dishes -- we enjoyed their "family recipe" tabouli salad made with bulgur wheat, parsley, green onions and lemon juice. It was a nice break from more traditional steak house salads. The side order of their steak fries was a wonderful accompaniment to the steaks. The serving is generous with enough fries for at least four people. The potatoes are hand-cut and served with a delicious Gorgonzola and Asiago cream sauce. It turned out the cheese sauce is very good with the steaks, too.