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Published: August 27th 2009
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Today we left Baton Rouge at 9:15am and headed back to Scenic route 61. (A quick stop for gas ...$2.37 a gallon). We rejoined route 61 at St Francesville. The road was once again forested and we passed many logging trucks all heading east. We saw a few lovely smaller homes set back quite a way from the road plus a few antebellum plantations. Their driveways were lined with massive oak trees that had obviously been planted many years ago. They were fabulous.
We left Louisiana and crossed the state line at 10:25am. Route 61 north of St Francesville was a 4 lane divided highway and it was a pretty quick trip to Natchez Mississippi. Natchez is a fabulous old river city and is steeped in history. It's one of Mississippi's oldest cities, it was founded by French colonists in 1716, predating the current capital city — Jackson — by more than a century. Located along the Mississippi River, Natchez is the southern terminus of the Natchez Trace Parkway. The city is famous in American history for its role in the development of the Old Southwest, particularly with respect to its location on the Mississippi River.
You can read more about
Natchez at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natchez,_Mississippi.
It is a really lovely place and incredibly interesting. Most of the streets and boulevards are lined with different coloured Crepe Myrle trees and many magnolia trees. We had lunch at the Magnolia Grill overlooking the Mississippi. Frank had a crawfish etouffee and I had a spinach salad. Etouffee is a Creole and Cajun dish typically served with shellfish or chicken over rice and is similar to gumbo. It is most popular in New Orleans and in the bayou country of the southernmost half of Louisiana.
The people here have an incredibly strong southern accent and I had to listen carefully to understand what they were saying. I'm usually pretty good with accents but had a hard time here.
After lunch we traveled on part of the Natchez Trace Parkway. The 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway commemorates an ancient trail used by animals and people that connected southern portions of the Mississippi River, through Alabama, to salt licks in today's central Tennessee. Today, visitors can experience this National Scenic Byway and All-American Road through driving, hiking, biking, horseback riding, and camping. There were many historic markers and sites to see. We were only on the parkway for only 39 miles but what we saw of it was gorgeous.
One of the stops was Mount Locust a fully restored "stand" which is the old name for Inn. The Mount Locust Inn served it's travelers until around 1825, when traffic on the Old Trace declined to the point where Mount Locust, unable to sustain itself as an inn, became a sort of "vacation home" for wealthy Natchez citizens, until shortly before in 1849.
The day seemed to just pass so quickly and there is so much more to see but we stopped at about 5pm when we reached Vicksburg, Mississippi. It was earlier than usual but the area north between here and the Tennessee border is mostly country and very small towns and it didn't seem that we would find a place to stay for the night. We need to be able to do most of that part in one day.
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