Tuesday 3-28 Natchez Trace Parkway

Yesterday, Larry noticed that the tail pipe was hanging down on the Minnie so he crawled under the Minnie to see what was wrong. He found that the pipe had cracked at a connector. He got on the internet to see if there was a muffler shop in Natchez, he found one called Natchez Exhaust. The first thing we did this morning was go to Natchez Exhaust. The owner told Larry that it would be an hour before he could look at it. They backed the Minnie into a bay and then hoisted it up in the air so they could work on it. First of all they removed the broken piece of pipe out of the exhaust with a torch and saw. Then they cut another piece of pipe to replace the broken piece. The last step was to weld the pipe in place. We were out of there within a hour. They did an excellent job and were very friendly.

           Natchez Exhaust                                          Working on the Minnie

After the Minnie was all fixed we went to downtown Natchez to do a little site seeing. Larry parked the Minnie by the river. There was a trail that ran along the river and a road that went to a casino. Larry and I walked the trail for a half hour. It was a nice walk that went through a beautiful city park that was very well used by people. There was a big gazebo in the middle of the park and a lady was doing yoga in it. After walking the trail we continued our walk around Natchez. We started walking around to see the historic mansions but didn’t make it too far before calling it a day due to high humidity. When we got back we had lunch.

 

The stairs we climbed down to get to the trail and the gazebo in the park

Natchez is a cute little town. Guided tours of the mansions in the Historic District are offered for about $20. You can also take a bus tour where you can get on and off the bus to visit the sites.

 

The tour bus

After visiting downtown Natchez we decided our next destination was going to be Jackson, Ms. which is the capitol of Mississippi. Before leaving Natchez Larry called LeFleur’s Bluff State Park to see if they had any sites available. They told Larry they did so he made reservation for the night there.

We have been following the Great River Road but to get to Jackson we had to get off it so we decided to take a National Parkway called Natchez Trace Parkway. The Natchez Trace Parkway is 444 miles through three states, 50 mph speed limit, no stops. In 1938 the National Park System established the parkway but it wasn’t officially completed until 2005. The parkway scenery is gorgeous with tall forest. There are pull offs for people to have lunch or just to enjoy the scenery. There are places for people to get off the parkway if they want to. We stopped at the Mount Locust Historic house. I walked around and took pictures while Larry sat under the trees and continued planning our route to Jackson. It was a very nice historic site. As we were driving we saw a wild turkey, a tortoise walking across the road and people riding their bicycles on the parkway. The road was well maintained. The parkway was peaceful and didn’t have a lot of traffic.

     

The entrance sign to the Natchez Trace Parkway

     The Natchez Trace Parkway                         The Mount Lotus Historic House

One of the overpasses we drove under

We exited the Natchez Trace Parkway at about mile marker 100 which took us down I55 toward LeFleur’s Bluff State Park. The park is a big park with camping, nature trail, picnic area/shelter, playgrounds, golf, boat ramps, disc golf, Mississippi Museum of National Science and pavilions. The road to the campground was rough at places. Our site backed up to the lake. All the sites are pretty with trees. While we were driving to our site I saw this building that looked like someone’s house but it was the restrooms. The restrooms are elevated in case the park floods. You can either take the stairs or a ramp that goes around the whole building. This was so cool. After setting up the Minnie we relaxed. It was too hot to sit outside so we stayed inside under the air conditioner.

Entrance sign to the campground

The restrooms in the park                Camping by Mayes Lake

                 The primitive camping area                 Our campground from the other side of the lake

Larry barbecued hamburgers for dinner. I needed to put in more steps to get my goal so I told Larry I was going to walk around the campground. While I was doing this I decided that I would walk to the other side of the lake to the boat ramp and day area. It was a very nice two mile walk. When I was walking back to the Minnie Larry was worried about me considering he hadn’t seen me for awhile so he came looking for me. I told him where I walked and then continued walking. I walked around the loop where our site was four times and then called it day. I completed my step goal plus a little more. By the end of the day I had done 13,258 steps. We had a fabulous day in Mississippi.