Travel Blog

You like how I said I'd write more "tomorrow" and now its like two days later? Yeah, me too.

On our way down to Natchez, we decided to get off the interstate and take a non-commercial vehicle route called the Natchez Trace Parkway. It's owned by the National Park Service, and it's quite lovely. The speed limit is only 50 mph, but the roads are superbly maintained, the scenery is great and it has the added bonus of no scary big rigs barrelling down it. According to the NPS website, "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." Phil dug around a bit more and found out it was used by the post riders back in 1801 (that's why the parkway sign has the rider on it), and I found out that Lewis from Lewis and Clark mysteriously died on the parkway.

When we reached Natchez, we decided to keep with the State Park theme and pulled into Natchez State Park. We had to kind of go past some scary, shambling houses and shut-down businesses to get into the Park, but once we were in, things got better. We drove around to see what spot we wanted, and we found a great one by the water. Phil did a great job backing into it, and we got all settled in.

We weren't able to make reservations online, so we stopped by the Visitor's Center first.

Now, you already know all about what we did in town, but near the park, there's an ancient Native American ceremonial mound called Emerald Mound that we wanted to check out. The following information is from the NPS website: Designated a National Historic Landmark, Emerald is the second largest ceremonial mound in the United States. Covering eight acres, Emerald Mound was built and used during the Mississippian period between 1250 and 1600 A.D. Its builders were ancestors of the Natchez Indians.

Looks like something is still leaving offerings:

There used to be more little mounds where you see field above, but plowing and erosion took care of those. Sorry there's so many  pictures, I just thought the place was really cool.

That's all I have on Mississippi. We're back in Albuquerque now for our fifth winter. Keep your fingers crossed that we get some work. Times are still really tough, but Albuquerque always seems to come through for us.