Riverboat country : two : Mississippi

Gambling is a strange business on the banks of the Mississippi. You can only hold a gaming license, if your establishment is floating. I think it's a throwback to the days when river boats chugged up and down the river. The norm is to build a large flat bottomed barge, stack it up with a casino superstructure, tether the floating mass to the land, and 'Bobs yer Uncle!' Instant ‘cash cow.’

These casinos are every bit as gaudy as any other casino establishment in the U.S. and pretty much unusable as a water craft. Most are permanently moored to a section of river bank, but we found one that had had a bit of creative thought put into what constituted ‘floating.’ There is only so much river bank to go around, so an operator had a pond dug specially, so that a casino could be ‘floated’ inland.

That night we went out for dinner with the manager of our Mississippi branch and our ‘head’ sales guy. They took us out to sample the local delicacy ‘Shrimp and Oyster Po-boys’ (which turned out to be big French-bread sandwiches stuffed with seafood) at this cool little restaurant down on the river bank.

When the meal was done, I was weary from our continuous flying schedule and went back to the B&B to sleep. The branch manager went home to his wife,

The last of Stu I saw that night, he and the Sales guy disappeared down the street, in search of a road house called the ‘Red dog.’ I remember thinking at the time, that the name reminded me of ‘One eye Jacks’ from Twin Peaks.

To be continued…

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