Where are Cheryl and Dennis?: Natchez - Ah Oh! Turn on the furnace tonight!

11/11/2019 – 11/17/2019

Monday – 11/11/2019 – Left Tishomingo State Park around 8:30 and headed south on the Trace. By the time we reached Natchez the temperature was 70 degrees. The cold weather low was forecast to dip WAY south with temps that evening to be below freezing. Highs tomorrow in the mid 30's. So we outran the bitter cold for a few days but it is finally catching up with us. Natchez was 300 miles away from Tishomingo so we decided to head there and stay at Natchez State Park for the night. The park was not busy and we were able to get one of the full hookup sites. We did some wash and watched some TV and waited for the cold front to reach us. It started to rain and got really windy. Heard various items falling on the camper but nothing serious that we could tell. Tomorrow's high is only supposed to reach the mid 30's and tomorrow's low the mid 20's. We just couldn't out run the arctic chill. Bummer!

Tuesday and Wednesday – 11/12/2019 – 11/13/2019 – On Tuesday after waking up to a bitterly cold morning (20 degrees) we took a drive into Natchez. Since it was so cold, we mainly just drove around Natchez. We also stopped at Natchez Coffee Co. to access to Wi-Fi to update and post my blog.

On Wednesday it was a little warmer and less windy but still pretty cold. We visited Frogmore Plantation across the Mississippi in Ferriday LA. This is a restored cotton plantation that is open for tours. We learned how cotton is grown, harvested and processed. This included seeing both an old steam driven cotton mill as well as a modern state of the art cotton processing facility.

From there we went back to Natchez to visit one of the historic antebellum homes in Natchez. These homes are grand but are not on plantations. They were built by the wealthy plantation owners to be near town, to attend social events and show off their wealth.

Melrose is a historic antebellum home built in 1849 by John McMurran, a wealthy lawyer and plantation owner. There were only 3 owners of the property and it was always sold with its entire contents, most of which remain in the house today. It was acquired by the national park service in 1990 and is now open to the public to visit and tour. Besides the main house there are two adjacent two story brick structures, one being the kitchen, the other a dairy. Both had slave quarters on the second floor. The property also includes additional slave quarters, stables and carriage house. It is a grand and beautiful property both inside and out.

Thursday - Sunday – 11/14/2019 – 11/17/2019 – Thursday we left Natchez State Park and headed south toward New Orleans. The original plan was to go right to Segnette State Park in Westego near New Orleans however we changed our plans and decided to revisit Buccaneer State Park in Mississippi. This is a very nice park located right on the gulf coast. We stopped here 3 years ago on our maiden retirement travels and really liked it. It was still a bit cold at night with lows in the low forties but it continued to warm up throughout our stay.

Not much new to report as we had seen most of the nearby sights last time we were here. One day we drove as far east as Gautier Mississippi. On the way we visited a Davis Bayou Park, part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. It is a small park with a nice visitor center, hiking trails, a fishing pier and a campground. A good portion of the National Seashore is on the barrier island located 20 to 30 miles offshore. There is a park ferry that will take you to the island but it was not running this time of year. Oh well. Maybe next time we are in the area.

The rest of our stay we hung out at the park and took drives along South Beach Boulevard to enjoy the views of the gulf.

Where we are parked: Natchez State Park – Natchez Ms – Site 1 – Full Hook up - $17 per night with senior discount.