As New Orleans was so awesome we thought any place would struggle to follow and when driving into Jackson it looked run down with old buildings and broken up streets, our cab ride from the bus station through the city and to our hotel also didn't give us much confidence as the city is small and unimpressive. Our opinions started to change though when we arrived at the 'Jackson Hotel and Suits' to find our room was massive with 2 tv's and a seperate lounge room to the bedroom as well as having a kitchenette, I had to go back and check my confirmation email to make sure I hadn't accidently booked an expensive hotel but to my shock it was a budget hotel, the accommodation over here has been soo cheap for what we get, we really haven't been slumming it yet so we have been lucky (except for that place in San Fran which still haunts me). While checking out the laundry facilities and fitness room we noticed an unusually large amount of people in jeans, ariat boots, button up shirts and akubras and suddenly got a sense that we were in the South and the people here are exactly what you would expect. I randomly picked up a brochure for 47th annual Dixie National Livestock Show which happened to be on in Jackson while we were there so once again we had very good timing. The first morning we got up early and had our free breakfast (the options were eggs, bagels, muffins, cereal, toast, juice, beef patties and even waffles) and decided to wonder across the road to a show that started at 8am called the 'Dixie National Quarter Horse show' (also a fluke that we booked accommodation right next to the arena). We ended up watching the competitors for 3.5 hours and it was very interesting, there weren't many people that early in the morning so we thought it was all pretty low key and that we would come back at 6:30pm for the Free style reining competition so after a relaxing afternoon and a quick $5 footlong (not sure if I have mentioned yet that Subway is doing a Februany month where any footlong sub is only $5, lets just say we have been eating a lot of subway at that price) we headed back across the road to the arena and as we were walking in we noticed there were people everywhere and massive lineups waiting for entry into the arena, this was obviously a massive event so we were very glad we had decided to go back for a look given that we thought it would be a small thing. We had an amazing night and were there for another 3.5hours watching a variety of performances a few of which I have filmed and added to the blog videos if you want to have a look, they were all so talented with their horses and it is amazing what they can do with them, maybe Jesse and I will be like that after our ranch job in Buffalo (of course we can't bring the horses home so won't be able to prove it to anyone). Jackson has been a pleasent surprise and a great experience of what they call the South country.