Yesterday we stopped in Natchez, Mississippi, an old town by the river with lots of greenery - plantation houses and streets lined with lilac and magnolia trees. The temperature and humidity are starting to climb and we progress down river. At Natchez we visited two lovely plantation houses - Rosalie and Stanton Hall. At Stanton Hall the ladies dressed in period costume pointed out the period furniture, told us about the architecture and the house. We stopped at the William Johnston House which was dedicated to a black man who was free and became very prosperous in the town. We also stopped at an African American Museum - it's hard to get an unbiased opinion of life back in the days of slavery but this last museum showed pictures of the buildings which were the slave markets.
Today we stopped in St. Francisville which is a town of about 1700 people in Louisianna, again it is a once prosperous place along the river but now just a small town. It was very picturesque, quaint houses and plantation museums. Today is the first time we've seen the huge Oak trees with Spanish Moss hanging from them. We see lots of churches in each town we go to- Episcopal, Catholic, Presbyterian - not surprising given that they call this area of the US the 'Bible Belt.'
While I explored the town today Peter went to Angola Prison where the story Shawshank Redemption was based. It is the biggest prison in all of the USA. It houses 6,300 prisoners and is set on 18,000 acres of rich farm land. The prison is divided into many smaller areas ranging from trustees through to maximum security and a further 340 inmates on death row.

He said it was a really interesting trip, and while the version of events we were presented with seemed pretty sanitized (ie, all the prisoners are happy and have found god) it was still obviously a really tough place to be in.

Interestingly the state of Louisianna locks people up more than any other place in the country, and in this state, a life sentence means life! That means a young prisoner entering this facility as an 18 year old will spend the next 70 years in prison if they happen to reach the age of 88. This is why around 2 - 3 prisoners die each week in gaol simply through old age.