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Published: January 7th 2011
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The day started early with breakfast downstairs before I headed to the Hertz place to collect our Hire Car. They gave me a Buick Enclave which is a stationwagon that is large enough and has really nice interor. It’s raining in New Orleans this morning so good to be leaving town on NYE and heading north to Jackson which is the capital city of Mississippi.
The drive took about 3.5 hours and as we crossed the border leaving Louisiana we stopped by a welcome centre which had a lovely lady who offered me coffee and maps / information etc. Kerry said she was Dolly Parton’s sister (without he gifts !) as she gave us all a Mississippi pin and a Happy NYE farewell y’all. The rain had eased on the drive and we had overcast skies and temperature OK at around 15 degrees.
We stopped at a town called Brookhaven for lunch. I stopped at the gas station which also had a Subway inside as well. The gas station was selling beers at the counter in a big ice bucket all ready to go which says a lot for drink driving ! After lunch we bought 2 bottles of
water, 2 large Powerades, a dozen Krisy Kreme donuts, a packet of chips for the sum of $10-00.
Arrived at Jackson around 3.30PM and found our overnight place at the Fairview Inn pretty easily. It is a B & B but not your normal version. This is a stately old mansion that has been renovated and expanded into a beautiful place. We explored the sections / rooms for a while which included a library with 2,000 civil war books with grand old furniture dating back years and the classic vintage decor. It also has a billiard room, and each room is decorated quite differently. Every room has a name and we had booked the Canonball Room. It is a lot grander than the website suggests and is a must stay any time you visit Jackson MS.
They have a fine dining restaurant onsite called Sofia’s and because the kids wanted KFC I went for a drive down the street with them to get some takeaway and we booked dinner for 2 on NYE at Sofia’s as they had a special menu for NYE.
Just as we arrived at KFC a storm arrived. We had a few showers
on the way here but this torrential rain. It took about 15 minutes to get our meals and then we tried to get back to the car. It was raining horizontal and blowing a gale. I took the back streets to the Fairview Inn as I did not want to drive on the main roads with traffic in this storm as the visibility was only a few feet. Only 5 minutes back to the Fairview Inn but pretty scary stuff with tree branches falling everywhere and lightning happening.
Got back to the B & B and dropped kids at front door and tried to park the car and walk through puddles back to the room. Whilst I was out Kerry had a weird phone call asking if she wanted to go into the bunker ? I soon found out they had issued tornado warning for a place about 20 miles away (no wonder it was so wild !).
Dinner was unreal and so classy. Kerry had french bisque for entree followed by duck breast for main and chocolate surprise for desert. I had salad, walnut with blue cheese for entree, filet mignon for main and red velvet cake
Happy New Year
Riesling will make you do funny things ! for desert. All washed down with some German Riesling, and they gave us special NYE hats to wear, and had a Pianist with a Cellist playing some nice dinner music. We also got some party horns to blow at NYE (not that we stayed up until midnight).
There was a portrait on the wall in the restaurant that looked like the waitress and turned out it was Sofia the daughter of the owners and I was talking to he owner who had a brother in Christchurch. She was on holidays from school in NOLA and said how crazy Bourbon St is a NYE. A real nice family and a great place to stay.
Tomorrow we continue the drive north into Tennessee and to Memphis the birthplace of Rock ‘ n’ Roll and apparently famous for some dude called Presley ! Did the online check-in for Memphis Homewood Suites and got to choose our room online (hope I chose the quiet one as we are pretty close to a freeway).
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