While My Camera… : Downtown Greenwood, Mississippi Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life

We did our Greenwood errand and then looked around, guided in no small part by the book that Daughter C. found at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi and gave to us last weekend, Off the Beaten Path Mississippi : A Guide to Unique Places* by Marlo Carter Kirkpatrick (2010).

We did our errand, parked, and strolled around. In chronological order…

Viking World Headquarters

[There will be a separate post about Viking’s presence in Greenwood, Mississippi.]


There are a number of galleries on Howard Street, the not-Main St. main street.

Read this. What a well-written sign. What a well-written paragraph. We go from the general to B.B. King.


The downtown seems to be prosperous. There are vacant buildings, but my sense is that someone will eventually do something with them. Or Viking will go out of business.

We went in the Mississippi Gift Company, in no small part because it was mentioned in Kirkpatrick’s book. This little shop has some very nice stuff. To be honest, it’s not really my kind of stuff– I took a catalog so I could show the Girls that the Angels they made were far superior (in their uniqueness) than the angels at Mississippi Gifts that were selling for more than nothing– but it was interesting.

You can see the next shop is a book store. There’s a cafe upstairs but it stopped selling lunch before we got there so we got coffee and looked at books.

Mr. Big Food described Barry Hannah’s life to me and it was not a life I would have chosen. Some where I have a photograph of the office down the hall from Barry Hanna’s office at That School Up North.

Moving on… . Our main goal was to find the Alluvial Hotel, in no small part because we have a book that says we should find it. And we did. We were still drinking our coffees and I had a camera slung around my neck but the folks at the Alluvial didn’t seem to mind. It’s probably commonplace.

Some pictures are of better quality than others.

That was a lot of fun. Mr. Big Food thinks we might make our way to the Alluvial Hotel in Greenwood, Mississippi before all is said & done.

We crossed the street. More beautiful signs.

Mr. Big Food suggested Daughter C. and I come out for a day. That is so not me. Therefore, it might be fun!

That exchange ticked me for a minute and then I saw the Viking sign and wandered over and looked around and shouted back to Mr. Big Food that it really was a Viking Store we could go in [so I could take pictures].

I’m trying to drive traffic. “All my shiny things about me; My trip to the Viking store,” will be posted shortly.