Casino Hopping

It was a windy night and a bit of rain, but nothing serious.  It's still windy this morning so we decided to stay put for one more day.  After a while the clouds went away and the sun came out.  There are five casinos in Vicksburg and we decided to do a little casino hopping just for something to do.  We had lunch at one casino and just looked around the other ones.  We're not big gamblers and only gambled away $2.  We took a few pictures and went back to the RV to watch TV.

Alligator!

This barge was parked near one of the casinos.

Heavy Metal Band

More Vicksburg, MS

Ugh... 83 degrees and windy, I think a storm is brewing.  It may be a bumpy night.

Old Court House (1858-1860)

We hung around the RV park today and visited with some of our fellow RVers.  Then we decided to pop in to town and see the Old Court House Museum.  There were two floors of pieces of history to see as well as the old courtroom.  Much of it was Civil War artifacts and lots of other antiques.  Then back to the RV and try to keep cool.

Return to Vicksburg

Natchez Trace Parkway again

We left Natchez and started driving up the Natchez Trace Parkway.  There was about 50 miles of it that we had not completed last month.  We won't take it all the way north this time as it will take us too far east.

Sunken Trace

 One stop we made along the Trace was to see a portion of the original old path.

This spot was named Sunken Trace.  This is a deeply eroded section of the 250 year old trail.

We spent the night at Rock Springs campground.  This was a nice wooded park, but we were unable to get any cell phone service, which we were not happy about.

Catfish Sculpture

So we left early this morning.  We left the Natchez Trace Parkway and went west to Vicksburg again.  We liked the RV park we had stayed at last month so we returned to that. 

Vicksburg has a lot to see, so we drove around for the afternoon and looked for things we missed last month.  We found this lovely city park down by the river.  We have seen a few fish statues around the city, there was one here at the park. 

This park also included a levee wall that an artist had pained several murals.  Next to that was an area with steamboat style light fixtures. 

Folk Art Structure

We drove out to see Margaret's Grocery.  Margaret's husband promised her years ago, "If you marry me, I'll turn your store into a palace."  It was listed as an attraction in the visitor's guide.  I think it has seen better days, as it was closed and falling apart.  Interesting anyway.

As we were driving we passed this little road side stand and stopped for a snack and a picture.



The Vine That Ate the South



Kudzu.  This climbing, coiling, trailing vine was introduced from Japan in 1876 and is now common along roadsides and other areas throughout most of the southeastern United States. Kudzu has been spreading at the rate of 150,000 acres annually

Natchez Misc Pictures from Today



Pretty Flowers



Camellia

Tiffany



Pig Out Inn BBQ where we ate lunch today.

 

Kinda small for a duplex in my opinion.

Art House?  There was no sign of it being a shop.

 

Natchez Under The Hill--what remains of where the gaming halls and dens of vice where the lawless villainy gathered, as well as bustling wharves, cluttered warehouses, shops and boisterous saloons used to be in early 1900's. "The Most Notorious Spot on the Mississippi River"



Longwood, the largest octagonal house in America.  This mansion was designed in 1859 for wealthy cotton planter Haller Nutt.  A great octagonal rotunda is open to the entire 6 stories.  When the civil war began in 1861 the craftsmen dropped their tools and fled North.  The basement level was finished as living quarters, but the rest of the inside of the mansion remains unfinished.

Floor plan of Longwood

Unfinished rotunda looking up to the top.

Melrose

Inside Melrose

Gas is going up!

Barge going under the Mississippi River Bridge.

Natchez, Mississippi

http://www.gopetfriendly.com/

 This morning we noticed an RV parked near us that had decals and advertising all over it.  It had a web address http://www.gopetfriendly.com/ on it.  So I looked into it.  They are a couple and their two dogs who are traveling around the country and blogging their experiences, noting pet friendly restaurants, hotels, campgrounds, etc. and giving dog training tips.  We were unable to talk to them but the web site is interesting for anyone who travels with pets.

Mississippi River Bridge

We left Hammond and headed northwest a bit to Natchez, Mississippi.  Natchez is small historic town, we will explore it tomorrow.   Today we did visit the Visitor Center and watched a movie about it and walked around the town.  The RV park we are at is very close to the big bridge that crosses the Mississippi River and goes to Louisiana.

The RV Park by the Bridge

The park we are in is only about 25 percent filled.  They are a Passport America park so we were able to pay half price for a river view premium site with full hookups including cable TV and internet that actually works.  We went out for supper and then for a walk along the river.

Hurricane Evacuation Route

I've been meaning to get a good picture of the Hurricane Evacuation Route signs.  These are never seen back home in Minnesota.

Mmmm Yummy

We are going to start gradually moving north now, hopefully get to Minnesota by the first of April.  Today we only went 30 miles, staying in Hammond, Louisiana, for the night.

For lunch we found a family restaurant in town.  The restaurant was nothing to brag about, but next door to it was a market that had locally grown produce and seafood.  We got some fresh picked strawberries, a bottle of strawberry cider, and some strawberry nut bread.



Crawfish Bread



One thing that got my attention was some hot Crawfish Bread they had on a warmer.  It looked much like pizza.  We loved it.  Imagine lobster pizza!   It had some zip to it because of the spices and peppers in with the cheeses and sauce.  Good stuff!



Alligator Meat



In the freezer section we found Alligator Meat.  We'll take that back to Minnesota and figure out how to cook it up there.  We got a bag of frozen catfish too.  Catfish seems to be in every restaurant here in the south.  We hardly ever see any other kind of fish on the menus.

Crawfish

Up until now the only crawfish we saw in restaurants was in a soup or sauce.  The main season for crawfish is in May.  This little market place had a big tub of boiled crawfish, so of course I just HAD to buy some.  I asked the lady for just a handful.  She must have really big hands because I think I got at least a dozen in the bag.

We waited until we got back to the privacy of our RV before we were brave enough to eat the crawfish.  We didn't want to embarrass ourselves if we reacted badly.  We took a big one and separated the tail from the head section.  The tail looked like a tiny lobster tail and we had no problem eating that.  It did taste like lobster. :)

Hello

But the head section was a little intimidating.  We knew you're supposed to suck out the inside of the head but we were not very confident about that so we dissected it to see what was in there (sorry no picture..you don't wanna see it anyway).  It just looked like gray mushy fish.  We tasted a bit of it before eating it.  It had been boiled in a spicy fish boil so there really was no yucky fishy taste like we thought it might be.  It's best described as a kind of spicy mushy lobster taste.  I liked it, Bernie is not so sure.







Fontainebleau State Park, Louisiana

Remains of an old sugar mill.

We left the casino RV park and went west to Fontainebleau State Park on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain in Louisiana. 



There were a few people sunning on the beach today.



It is a pretty park, large well groomed day use areas, sandy beach, nature trails.  It used to be a big plantation with a sugar mill back in the 1800's.

We went for a walk on one of the nature trails.  There are alligators here, but we did not see any today.  We did see one water snake and some ducks.







Another Mardi Gras Parade

Another beautiful day for a parade.  There was a parade in Slidell, Louisiana, that we heard was supposed to be a good one, so we drove into Louisiana to see it.  We were there about three hours before the parade started and had no trouble finding a place to park along the parade route.  There were already lots of people parked and tailgating.  Some people went all out, setting up tents and tables and grills for their families. 

Apparently people used to go and park their cars up to three days before the parade was to start so the city posted signs saying they can park there no more than 12 hours before the parade. 

This parade was a little more traditional in style.  There were two marching bands, several dance groups and a few jump rope organizations as well as the Mardi Gras floats and beads tossing to hungry crowds.

 

Midway through the parade it just stopped, and everyone took a break.  The band members put down their instruments and sat down.  Some just laid down and rested, and the band director made everyone eat a banana and take a drink.

Two custom pickup trucks.

When the parade ended we sat and watched the traffic for a while.  We saw some interesting vehicles.



Just some of the beads we got today,
as well as the cups.



We scored almost as many beads as we did at the parade yesterday in Gulfport, MS, but this time we also captured two plastic Mardi Gras souvenir cups.  Woot! hahaha