The traveling sisters - Day 4

Day 4

Natchez, Mississippi

Driving time:  3 hours each way

This was our longest drive, and my favorite part.  Natchez is a quaint old town along the Mississippi river.  It was the kind of town you imagined the south to be full of... southern belles.  And plantations.  

We did a three home tour.  Our first stop was "Longmore".  Just a little shack of roughly 30,000 square feet (10,000 each floor).  It was built on the side of a hill, so the "basement" was ground level in the back, but underground in the front, just like a basement.  They were only able to finish the basement before the Civil war started, and never had the money even well into the 1900's to finish any other part of the house.  Pictures weren't allowed in the basement, and we couldn't go into the upper levels, so this is the main level, or "principal floor" of the house as it sits, unfinished.  If I recall correctly, this family had somewhere around 300 slaves on their plantation.  

 The round spots in the floor were skylights into the basement.   Those boxes with panes were mirrors so it would reflect the light coming in from above.

 Yeah, I think I could live there.

 From here we went to "Magnolia Hall."  It was my least favorite of the three, and some of that was the tour guide who wasn't exactly oozing with personality.  She was from Pennsylvania, however.  Again, no pictures were allowed inside.  On one of the tours, we learned that most houses had a ladies room and a gentlemans room.  They figured the ladies room was most often on the back of the house so that people walking by the street wouldn't see an unattended lady in the window and come calling.  Made sense to me.  The house had lots of examples of dresses that young ladies wear in the local pageant... expensive and elaborate with 25 foot trains, all handmade, so expensive that some girls have to turn down the title of queen in the end because they can't afford the expenses that come along with the title.

Our tour guide recommended we eat lunch at a local place called Beaurds.  It served up Po Boys and Muffeletta, which were just okay, but it came with some darn tasty sweet potato fries.  Not my favorite meal of the trip, that was for sure, but not too bad.

"Rosalie" was my favorite home, although I'm pretty sure it was because of the southern belle that was our tour guide.  She was a sweetheart, just oozing with southern charm!  It was a stunning home with a view from the veranda that made you realize just why the confederate army took over the house during the civil war.

 We drove across the bridge into Louisiana for a few minutes, just to say we'd crossed the mighty Mississippi.  

It was a long drive home and dinner consisted of... I don't really remember, it was that memorable.  Probably toast.  We ate a lot of toast.  My sister is allergic to gluten but had bought us a loaf of regular bread so of course we had to eat it for her.  That and we were too tired to eat anything else.  

We did, however, stop on the way to Natchez and buy some BlueBell Icecream.  I'd heard how wonderful this icecream was from all my southern friends and it did not disappoint.