Hood Life and Fried Alligator

 When I started writing this blog, I thought it would be a blog full of climbing stories, cultural experiences and other sh****t. Well this part of today's blog covers the non climbing part. At the beginning of May right after finals ended, I managed to get on a trip for Hydro-Geophysical field work in the lower Mississippi Valley near Vicksburg, MS. I learned a lot about geophysical and hydrological methods and how to apply them. However, for me the most memorable experiences were the cultural differences coming to the South. While making the drive to Mississippi from Wyoming, I had the once in a life time experience to visit unique American countrysides of states like Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. While Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana were nice states, I was shocked to experience the unique monotony of Kansas.

A good old southern swamp

 Most people read at one point in their life the Wizard of Oz, skimmed through the summary on SparkNotes or joined the fraction of people that sit on their couch with a bag of chips and watch it on TV. For me after reading the book, I thought Kansas would be a beautiful state and that there was a reason why Dorothy wanted to go back to Kansas.
Well driving through the state, which means 5 hours of a never changing landscape of grass fields, I realized that either Dorothy was suicidal (who in the right mind would trade the action and party of Oz for an entire state of boredom?) or the author of the book has never been to Kansas, sort of like the famous German author Karl May who wrote Winnetou, a series of books about the adventurous life in the Wild West, without ever being to the United States.

The Scenery in Northern Oklahoma

Another interesting experience in the south was the incredible amount of fried food which was available. Never before in my life have I had the opportunity to eat fried chicken tenders for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This multiplied by 14 days, most definitely decreased my life expectation by at least 25 years. However I have to admit after 7 days of fried food for at least once a day, I switched my nutrition to mainly watermelon and sandwiches, in fear of my heart collapsing from to much fried substances in my blood.

Craw Fish and Boudin

Besides the differences in Food, I was also offered the opportunity to experience traditional American music. While being exposed to Country Hit Singles like "She Thinks My Tractor is sexy" or "I take you for a Ride in My Big Green Tractor" while cruising through the High Plains of the Mid-West, down south I could experience traditional southern Rap music, which totally blew my mind. Lyrics like "Twerkaholic " or bars like "A Hoochie on a Hoochie to do the Hoochie Couchie" were even to much for a rap veteran like me. To top this experience off, we also experienced full on Hood life the night we arrived on the Jackson State University Campus, which were a great host for our two weeks in Mississippi. While driving to the entrance gate of campus, which was protected by at least 8 armed police officers, we of course had to hear machine gun shots, which appeared to be not to far away from us, but with the tough Cowboy Mentality and the Eazy-E slogan "The Boyz in the Hood are always hard", this wasn't to concerning.

Alligators are hella nice 

 After experiencing Hood Life and Fried Food and insanity in the Mid West, I also managed to make it down to the more interesting parts of the South. First stop was New Orleans, a city I always wanted to go to and definitely have to go to again, once I am 21 years of age. The City is beautiful, yet humid and has in my opinion the coolest downtown area of any city I have seen in the US. Unfortunately, we only spend half a day in New Orleans, since our goal was to go even more south into the Bayou land of the Mississippi Delta to see Alligators and other swamp animals. We succeeded in that mission and used the rest of the day to lay around in the sun and to try the local cuisine, which included fried Alligator, Boudin Sausage, Shrimp & Craw Fish. After our trip to New Orleans, I also managed to visit the Battlefield of Vicksburg on one of my days in the South, which was interesting, but not comparable with any battle field I visited in Europe, which is probably due to the fact that I can't identify with the American History as much, as I can with what happened in my home country; the land of Sauerkraut, Bratwurst and Pretzel.

Canons belonging to the Army of Illinois (Union) in Vicksburg, MS 

 After two weeks the trip came to and end, and with some extra pounds of fried German skin, I had to go back to Wyoming to kick of the summer climbing season, now that the weather in Wyoming finally started to become stable.

To be continued, I need another dose of something fried :)