We had five days to get from Nashville, Tennessee to New Orleans, Louisianna where we would pick Bryce up from the airport and begin our ten day adventure with him. We chose to drive south along the Natchez Trace, another scenic route well known in the world of US driving trips. Most of this route was through Mississippi state.
The Natchez Trace was historically the route that farmers, plantation owners (well..maybe not the owners but their workers) and merchants would travel from the south of the Mississippi River back up north to their home. Before steamships were invented, merchants would sail/barge south on the Mississippi with their goods in order to sell them to the bustling port cities. Rather than slowly paddle up river to get back home, they would disassemble their raft, trade the boat's wood for a mule or two and ride back home.
The drive was beautiful and we had enough time to take make it in a leisurely pace. Perhaps the most exciting thing along the drive itself, aside from the greenery, were the ancient Indian mounds. Not that exciting to gaze at, but very neat to think about--over 2000 years ago the Native Indians would bury their loved ones with personal belongings in these large ceremonial mounds. We spent a few nights at great campsites, did some fishing, cooked some good meals, lost Cameron's glasses (luckily they've since been found and the campground is kindly mailing them home), and had a couple good runs along the walking paths.
Cam loving the camping. Thanks to Julie and Mike we discovered the beauty of cooking corn on the grill. And please, this is grilling, not BBQing..there is a difference.
Beautiful driving through Mississippi.
Me in my prime. I've discovered I love fishing.
We detoured off the "Trace" as it's affectionately referred to, and made our way to Clarksdale, Mississippi...yet another hotbed of musical history. Ike Turner was born here, along with a slew of well known blues musicians. We rolled into town and went straight to the local blues bar, where we spent the night bopping away to live music.
We spent the next day driving along Highway 1, next to the Mississippi. Our Mississippi River spotting failed for the most part as we quickly realized there are levees that run the whole course of the river and block the view of it. We were able to detour into a little industrial port along the way and catch a glipse of the flooding waters though.
Our next highlight was BB King's birthplace, Indianola, MI. A couple years ago I never would have known who BB King was, but friends Crystal and Dave got me hooked a while ago and so I was quite excited to learn more about him. Of course, Cameron already knew who he was, not because I taught him, but because he's smart like that. The BB King museum was yet another spectacularly done exhibit and we learned all about his poor upbringing and crazy lifestyle that has kept him on the road for the last 60 years doing concerts almost daily.
On our way to Clarksdale we stopped in Tupelo. This is teeny tiny house that Elvis was born in, and lived until he was 3 years old. At that point, his parents couldn't afford the house anymore and had to move in with Elvis's grandparents.
Elvis and his folks
Perhaps one of the best meals of the trip was in Taylor, MI. Catfish (one plate blackened, the other grilled) at a little divey looking restaurant
We had to do it. We had to try Sonic, a drive-in restaurant. Thinking it would be "old-fashioned" and serve us with a table attached to our car window we were excited. Instead we got a to-go bag of food and a greasy smelling car.
Davey Crockett's home. Unfortunately you see what we saw. The exhibit inside was all deteriorated and rotting so we didn't really learn too much about the great frontiersman.
With our sightseeing complete, we got back onto our scenic drive and rode the rest of the Natchez out before jumping on the major highways to bring us into New Orleans. What was really wild was the gigantically long raised highways that led into the city. Louisianna has so much water and swamp land and the area leading into NOLA (yes, that New Orleans, Louisianna) had houses raised up on stilts and children going to school in boats--very reminiscent of Cambodia!
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