Louisiana & Mississippi

Little American town

Overlooking the Mississippi River in Natchez

One of the beautiful mansions from days gone by...

Looking back to Natchez as we crossed the Mississippi River

Our RV site on the Louisiana side of the river - looking across to Natchez

Our drive out and across the whole breath of Alabama and into Mississippi was very scenic. The countryside was lush and peppered with stunning properties, which was very different from our first impression coming up south from Florida. The Crepe Myrtle trees were blooming in all shades ranging across the colour spectrum from white to purple which made pretty entrances to each of the little towns along our route. Most towns were very clean and tidy, some modern, and others looked as though time had forgotten them. We spent one night in Mississippi on the way through, and kept moving west until we hit the Mississippi River border into Louisiana at Natchez.

Natchez is supposedly the oldest settlement on the Mississippi River. Even before the Europeans settled there, early indigenous people are reported to have lived there since the 8th Century and American Indians (Natchez tribe) since the late 17th Century. However my interest stems from its days as a bustling port, loading cotton from local plantations to send upriver to St Louis or down river to New Orleans for eventual shipping to English cotton mills. The Antebellum houses of the plantation owners were magnificent in their day, and several have been maintained and remain in beautiful condition today. The houses are so pretty, but the extensive, manicured gardens with huge oak trees complete the impressive view.

We had just parked the RV in a Natchez street closest to the Mississippi River, and hopped out to have a look and take some photos, when we met a couple from Tennessee who were also taking photos. Pat & Billy stopped and chatted, and we learnt that they were retired, but that Pat & her sister owned a fully restored mansion in Tennessee, and for the last 6 months, they have been renting all 5 rooms out as a B&B. If you are planning a visit to the nearby Jack Daniels Distillery in Tennessee, book a room at the Green Rose of Raus B&B (take a look), and say Trish sent you! After that brief encounter, we discovered we were staying at the same RV park on the river (on the Louisiana side), and arranged to meet up after dinner. We had a pleasant couple of hours sitting outside with them, overlooking the river sipping beer & wine, then we went back to their RV for another beer. They have a beautiful RV – same brand as ours, but a later and more up market model. They showed us a weather alert monitor they had purchased for $30. It alarms when bad weather is in your area, and you can press a button anytime and hear a current weather radio announcement - it is a 24/7, 365 day service. Hail, lightning, heavy rain or strong winds can seriously impact our life on the road, not to mention the danger of tornadoes or hurricanes. We called into Walmart & bought a monitor the very next day, and are grateful to them for the recommendation. It will be easier to go to sleep knowing that we will be woken by an alarm if a storm enters our area. We can listen to the nature of the threat, and then assess what our plan of action needs to be. We have had a few sleepless nights in Florida, Nebraska and North Dakota on previous trips, wondering if a threatened storm or tornado is going to impact on us or not, so this will ease our anxiety for similar occasions in the future.

The next morning we said our goodbyes to the Mississippi River and crossed the full width of Louisiana. It was about 150 miles at that part of the state, so about a 3 hour leisurely drive for us. Once again the scenery was beautiful, with all the spring/summer growth. Down this end of the country though, apart from a roadside meeting of a flock of vultures, 2 dead fawns, 1 dead fox and multiple dead armadillos, roadside wildlife has been notably absent! We don’t like to see them dead, but we do like to see live animals. We have not seen one live deer this trip. Although just a few days after we left Arkansas, our friends found several fawns on their property. They were hiding while we were there!

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