Finding America

Day 6

Little Nick was supposed to be our alarm clock but the evenings excitement must have been to much for him and he slept in giving us a few more precious minutes of sleep. Kevin finally came knocking and we packed up and took showers. While our trailer’s shower isn’t awful it is a tight fit and the water pressure leaves something to be desired. A full pressure shower was certainly a welcomed luxury.

We all hopped in the car and drove through LSU’s campus on our way to breakfast. We stopped off to see LSU’s tiger Mike but he was still slumbering somewhere at the back of his enclosure. Anyhow we went to a greasy spoon diner called Louie’s for breakfast and they made Nick some Mickey Mouse pancakes. The food was the perfect fuel for another day of travel and adventure.

We said our goodbyes and took to the road again, destination Natchez, MS. Via Hwy 61 we meandered our way north through cotton fields and oak groves. Every once in a while a street sign would point down a long tree lined dirt road to some historic plantation home.

About 45 miles out of Baton Rouge we discovered the town of St. Francesville. With quaint shops, an excellent coffee/book shop and a row of historic antebellum homes, St. Francesville serves as a nice place to stretch your legs and take in a bit of small town American charm.

On the road again just south of Natchez we came upon a huge roadside statue of a Southern woman in a big red hoop skirt. We had stumbled upon Mammy’s Cupboard. How could we pass up this little gem? Guiding Kodi to the shoulder we parked and went in for a closer look. Well we got a much closer look as the smell of good southern cooking drew us inside and sat us down to a home cooked meal and some mason jar sweet tea. Oh yeah we split an Ice Box Chocolate Moose Pie. Uh my Lord it was good.

Feeling a bit gluttonous after our feast we drove in to Natchez with the plan of getting a good bike ride in and taking architectural notes from the abundant plantation style homes. We parked at the tourist information center on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. They had a short 20 minute movie which spanned Natchez history from its Pre-Columbian inhabitants, through its Civil War opulence and straight up to the modern day pilgrimages of antebellum charm seeking tourists.

We toured the city on our bikes and rode along the river and down to the warf which they call “Under the Hill”. There was a large paddle boat steamer at the dock and passengers were walking up the gangplank for an evening of dinning and gambling on the river. The ride up the hill back to the tourist center was quite a challenge and definitely had us huffing and puffing.

We freshened up a bit in the trailer and then headed across the bridge spanning the Mississippi. Leaving town we headed back into Louisiana and started charting a course northwest.

After driving for a few hours we pulled into an RV park in Monroe, LA and set up camp in the failing light of the day. Our site overlooked a small pond and a few campers were fishing when we pulled up.

Kamrin cooked some dinner while I did some tiding up and maintenance work. We sat down to a delicious meal and once the dishes were clean we were quickly off to bed. It was a good, but long day, and falling into bed we both almost laughed with how nice it was to cash out on our memory foam mattress and between the warm jersey sheets.