10 days on the Natchez Trace Parkway

We made a 20 mile (32 km) detour off the Trace yesterday to take in a ruins site that Ruth had read about.

Another really interesting story, where this wealthy landowner had built himself a huge mansion back in 1861. After completing the mansion, he died at age 34 only weeks later! The mansion survived the turmoil of the Civil War, only to be destroyed by fire when it accidentally burnt to the ground in 1890.

Only one problem!

Road closed!

It turns out that the road had washed away a couple of months ago. They're almost done repairing it, but it looked like they might be another week or so. Fortunately, there's a wildlife management area parking just before this, and it's only a 1.3 mile (2.1 km) walk each way to get to the ruins site.

Walking down the deserted road.

 Interesting scenery along the way.

Ruins site.

All that remains are the columns and a couple of balcony railings.

Sorry for the bad focus, but at least you get an idea of what the house originally looked like.

Pretty ornate, on top of each column.

Windsor ruins.

Interesting stuff. I'm glad we did the detour.

Yesterday we finished the last section of the Natchez Trace Parkway, all 444 miles (710 kms). Really enjoyed it, and glad that we took our time and saw as much stuff along the way as we could. It's been ten days since we entered the parkway just south of Nashville, Tennessee.

On the last section.

And one last rest stop.

The Mount Locust Inn remains as the only one of more than 50 such inns that existed between 1785 and 1830 along the old Trace. It has been restored to its 1810 appearance, the time when travel on the old road peaked.

We pulled in to the historic town of Natchez, Mississippi at around 3:00pm. We headed to the main post office where we had an Amazon package waiting for us. We'll tell you more about the package another day.

When we are traveling, we order anything we like from Amazon and pick it up at a post office along the way. But, you have to follow some basic guidelines for this to work properly...

How to Collect your Amazon packages on the Road

Then, it was over to the Natchez Visitors Center, where they allow RVs to park overnight in their lot.

We stayed here in April of 2009, so we knew that the parking lot is not very level. But, I was prepared for that and soon had us perfectly level! There's only one other rig here, and I noticed him plugged in to one of the many electrical outlets, so we asked about that and were told "sure, if you can find one that's working, that's fine". 

So I tested the one nearest us, and sure enough it was fine. And, we have a useable (although slow) wifi signal. Normally, you can only stay one night but we asked if it was okay to stay two because it's not busy and they confirmed that was okay.

Then, we got out the Christmas decorations!

Just kidding. They've got the whole visitors center nicely decorated for the season.

So today, we're going to explore Natchez, and go to Fat Mama's Tamales and treat ourselves to lunch and one of their famous "Knock you Naked" margaritas! Then this evening to the casino across the road for some $10 free play gambling (thanks for the info Tommy!) and free live music.

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