Day 36, Natchez Mississippi to Southhaven MS

Happy B-day Emily!!!!
More to come. jerr

Day 36, Natchez Mississippi to Southhaven MS

We ate breakfast at the hotel seated by a window looking into the courtyard.

The neat item there was a fire burning through the water spray. A nice buffet of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon fried potatoes and grits. Good grits. The coffee’s brand name was Community Coffee, a delicious flavor. Our waitress asked if we wanted anything, I said is there some bacon out? She looked said a new batch was out and I could get as much as I wanted. I took a couple swigs of coffee and around the corner she came with a small plate piled high with bacon. Really nice, she was as pleasant as ever to talk to. Almost forgot the pears and warm peaches were a real treat.



As we were checking out against the wall was a glass framed forty star flag. It was said that it was the flag that was first draped over Grant's casket, pierced by Civil War bullets and given by a first Sargent. I mention it because Danielle and Abby saw Grant’s house in Galena Illinois a couple years ago.








Now down to see the river. The road we took down yesterday was blocked. We walked down the road, steep road to the bottom. The river had over flown the sandbags of yesterday. They were re-bagging the area around the casino; yes people were still going on board. I suspect they wanted to sell their story about the steamboat crashing into the bridge during the high water. After a slow, slow walk back up the road admiring some wild flowers along the way we looked at a couple of old homes with beautiful flowers blooming.












Off to the St. Mary Basilica, once the first Catholic Church built as a Cathedral. Also had a sign that the first name for the church was “Church of the Sorrowful Mother”, statue behind the priests house had a statue of her. What a beautiful inside, statues on ledges above the peoples heads over the pews,

‘The Crucifixion” a nice painting behind the alter, hanging on the wall are the Stations of the Cross similar in design to the ones in the New Ulm Cathedral.















Through the Melrose mansion we went. It was massive but the people who had lived there had many tradgies that would put gloom into the house. The first floor was for guests and nicely appointed with green drapperies (green was more expensive than gold and red). More nice woods and rugs. The upstairs was more frugel, they did not need to show off up here as only relatives would ever make it this far up in the house. The furnishings was really nice.

This dress was made of silk in Paris for the girls wedding. The wedding took place during bailing cotton and the father would not attend and therefore her mother neither. But she decorated a bedroom with wallpaper of draps and flower wall paper.








This was slave quarters, second floor, the first floor was used for household work. The quarters were called Dependency homes. Actually the Masters house was dependent on them 24 hours a day.










These were a little further off and housed the horse and garden workers. Not quite as nice but better than most. The owners even attended the wedding of a slave couple.

We left town going NORTH stopped for gas and ate at a Bonefish Grill in Madison MS. We split meal of four shrimp scampi with a small filet and potatoes Au gratin, a nice blend of cubed potatoes, mixed with a hard cheese so as nt to make them mushy, coated with panko crumbs and toasted, nice.

We then took the slow road to Jackson on the Natchez Trace. The road wound through the countryside at 50 MPH.

It was beauty at its best. It followed an old Indian trail (or trace) from Natchez to Nashville more than 500 miles long. THis trail was used by wagons early in the 19th century used by traders and settlers. Many people we ran into here were following the full trail We got off at Jackson.

jerr