The Natchez Trace, Graceland and Huntsville, AL
Friday, March 18
We are staying at the Mardi Gras RV Park in east New Orleans. It’s an unimpressive place – basically a parking lot for RVs, but there are few choices in this area, and it’s convenient. Today we are going to take a swamp tour at the Honey Island Swamp in Slidell, LA. Slidell is about an hour from where we’re staying; we arrive early in town, and, seeking a bathroom, we stop at the Slidell Historical Museum. It’s in the former Jail and City Hall. We are greeted by an older gentleman, who gives us the history of the town’s founder, millionaire John Slidell, and a guided tour – in painstaking detail - of the first floor of the museum – 3 rooms filled with framed newspaper clippings, an old desk and typewriter, and other artifacts from Slidell’s past. The former jail cells are devoted to exhibits to firefighters and police, including a touching tribute to the town’s only police officer to die in the line of duty, in 1975. The second floor is a Civil War exhibit; a young man gives us the historical tour, telling us earnestly about the black slaves who fought on the side of the Confederacy. Both of our tour guides are Southern gentlemen – and paid city employees, not volunteers, according to the younger one. Our unintended stop turns out to be interesting and informative – and yes, the museum had a bathroom too.
Our guide for our swamp tour is Captain Ted, a sun-browned beach bum and retired river ship master (he guided ships from the Gulf into the Mississippi River). Now he pilots a 24 passenger flatbottom boat through the 3-foot deep swamp. He’s a wealth of information and stories, all punctuated with “How about that?” and “Isn’t that somethin’?” in his N’awlins (born and raised) drawl. He regales us with facts (and a little fiction, I suspect) about denizens of the swamp - alligators, turtles, fish and swamp snakes; also Spanish moss, cypress and willow trees, lifers on the “Farm” (the Louisiana Penitentiary), interspersed with mouthwateringly detailed recipes using shrimp, arrowroot, nutria and other local delicacies. He points out the nutria hiding in the swamp brush. Nutria, contrary to its name, is a furry brown rodent that grows to 35 pounds and, Capt. Ted says, makes good eatin’ – and is low fat to boot. “We call it “the ‘Other’ other white meat,” he says. Local restaurant owners have tried to put it on their menu under a different name, but discriminating diners continue to turn up their nose at eating rat – even if it does meet FDA Food Pyramid guidelines. Capt. Ted, who loves to cook, confesses that he’s served nutria at his weekly luaus to high praise from unsuspecting guests who think they’re eating pork. Capt. Ted tells us that nutria reproduce so rapidly they are overtaking the swamp and killing the plants and trees, so the state government has put a bounty on them, paying $4 for each tail turned in. When he’s driving down the road and spots a dead nutria, he removes the tail, then spray paints a splash of red on the carcass “so I don’t waste time stopping for it on the return trip,” he says. The tails go in a plastic bag in his freezer; when he’s amassed 30 or 40 road kill tails, he turns them in for cash. His earnings on this, he says, can amount to $250 a month or more.
It’s a sunny warm day, perfect for sitting in a boat on the water. The swamp, however, is not as dramatic as I had imagined. A swamp is simply a forest that’s permanently flooded, and bright sunlight removes the midnight eeriness that swamps always have in the movies. Captain Ted says there are fish of all kinds swimming below us, but we can’t say anything in the murky muddy water. There are (non-native) water lilies blooming here and there, grasses emerging from the surface, and cypress “knees” that look like miniature statues protruding from the water. Each tree may have 15 or 20 or more of these knobby growths. It’s illegal to cut them, according to Capt. Ted, although cutting them doesn’t hurt the tree.
After 2 hours, Capt. Ted brings our boat back to the mouth of the swamp to the Cajun Encounters dock. It’s been an entertaining and enlightening 2 hours, and his recipes have made us hungry. We head to New Orleans to find Café du Monde – I want my beignets and I don’t care what time it is.
New Orleans has a serious parking problem. There are few public parking lots and most of them appear to be full; the onstreet parking is equally sparse, and every space is occupied. We drive around for 30 minutes looking for a place to park; I’m ready to bag it and go back when we finally spy a public parking lot with some empty spaces. We park the Jeep and walk toward the French Market. The streets and sidewalks are crowded with tourists, and when we arrive at Café du Monde, it’s apparent that half the tourists in town have the same idea I do. We decide to get our beignets to go, which turns out to be a dumb idea, because we stand in line endlessly, watching as people sit down at the bistro tables, order, eat their beignets and leave. And here I stand in line. It is 4 o’clock in the afternoon – time for happy hour – but my happiness depends on little square puffs of dough, deep fried and doused with a stormcloud of powdered sugar. I stand, and I wait – 15, 20, 25 minutes. At last, I place my order – coffee, café au lait, 2 orders of beignets – and I am handed the paper bag, greasy and hot to the touch. Steve and I sit down on a bench in the late afternoon sun and savor the mouth ecstasy of fried dough and sugar with a coffee chaser. It is heaven indeed – and we have enough left over to repeat this joy for breakfast tomorrow.
Saturday, March 19
We’ve left New Orleans. 2 days is plenty of time for me: New Orleans is like Disneyland for grownups. There’s little that’s real about the parts of it that are promoted to tourists – the French Quarter, the French Market, Bourbon Street, the plantations, even the Dixieland Jazz has given way, for the most part, to rock music and/or some sort of sanitized Cajun music that sounds like tourist muzak. The shops all have the same trinkets and T-shirts; all hawk Mardi Gras apparel, masks, beads and other ticky-tacky as though it were a 365-day-a-year festival. There may be another New Orleans, but it’s kept a secret from visitors.
However, the D-Day Museum is an unexpected surprise in New Orleans. We visit it for several hours Saturday morning. It provides a stark and painful picture of the realities and horror of war, especially this emblematic battle which is often portrayed in heroic terms. While it was a turning point in World War II, it was a killing field, in the water, on the beaches of Juno, Omaha, Utah and XXX, and in the forests and hedgerows where paratroopers and gliders, overloaded with jeeps, tanks and army troops, landed and died. After learning of the devastating loss of life at Normandy, I am far more aware of the significance of this event, and why the memories have such a powerful emotional impact for those who took part in this hellish battle.
We stop outside of New Orleans to get diesel fuel. There’s a family with a fifth wheel trailer at the pump next to us. Princess climbs out of our RV, and soon the family – grandmother, mother, 4 children and aunt – are all crowded around. Princess is the conversation starter - they tell us about their 3 boston terriers and Chihuahua at home and we exchange animal tales. We tell them about our cross-country journey; they tell us they are going to Biloxi for vacation. We have a long conversation while diesel fuel flows into the tank – it takes awhile to fill 50 gallons. At last, our respective tanks are full; we wish each other a safe and enjoyable journey and pull out.
On the road to Jackson . . . a four-lane highway though pastoral countryside. A field to the left is polka-dotted with cows – brown, black,white, tan – every cow color possible. At 70 miles per hour and waning light, it is not possible to take a photo. This is one of those Kodak moments I’ll have to retain in memory.
From New Orleans, we are going to visit my sister in Huntsville, AL. Since we’re going north, we decide to follow the Natchez Trace Parkway, a scenic 2-lane road with lots of historic sites along the way. We’re planning to pick it up in Utica, southwest of Jackson, MS, but the RV park there (the only one in the area) doesn’t answer or return our call about space availability, so we drive on to Jackson. Unfortunately, there are few RV parks in Jackson – one private park and 2 state parks. The private park is full and the others don’t answer our phone call. So we drive into Jackson and end up in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We check with the security agent to make sure it’s okay to park overnight – he tells us “Sure, stay for a month if you want.” Later that evening, there’s a knock on the door of our RV. It’s a Jackson police officer – she saw the open door of our motorhome (we’d opened it, but left the screen door closed, for air circulation) and wanted to make sure we hadn’t gone and unwittingly left the door open. What a pleasant surprise!
The next day, it’s raining, with rain predicted for the rest of the day throughout Mississippi. We decide there’s no sense and leaving today – there’s nothing scenic about a rain-sodden drive. We spend the day grocery shopping (at Wal-Mart, of course), cleaning house, and later, going to the movie – a really rotten John Travolta-Uma Thurman flick, Be Cool. What a waste of $11!
Monday, March 21
The Natchez Trace Parkway is a tree-lined commercial-free road – no billboards or ads of any kind or commercial trucks. The tr5ees are starting to bud with clouds of lavender and russet. To the right is a large body of water – the Ross Barnard Reservoir. Further on, we stop at a roadside rest area, Cypress Swamp, and get out to stretch our legs. The quiet is punctuated by a sound track of birds twittering and chirping in an avian symphony. I listen to the sound of nature, letting the musical stillness soak into my soul.
We stop at the Natchez Trace visitor center in Kiusko, birthplace of Oprah Winfrey, and pick up information about this early Native American north-south footpath and pioneer travel route. The 2 ladies at the center are warm and friendly, as we’ve found most all Southerners to be. They welcome us to Mississippi and encourage us to stay and explore their state.
March 22
Tupelo, MS – the birthplace of Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley’s presence is everywhere here – in photos and paintings in homage to him, in the street name – Elvis Presley Memorial Highway – and the Museum, “Fountain of Life,” “Walkway of Life” and the framed verbal tributes and accolades on the grounds where his birthplace home has become a shrine. We visit the site and tour the gift shop, passing on the opportunity to buy pink Elvis potholders imprinted with his recipe for fried peanut and banana sandwiches. We also decline the $6 admission fee for the museum, where we could see Elvis’ clothing, furnishings and other memorabilia. After all, tomorrow we’re going to Graceland, where he lived and died!
Tupelo is a friendly town. I love listening to people here and throughout Mississippi. Their voices are rich and melodic, and their southern accents warm and inviting, like butter and maple syrup poured slowly from a pitcher.
We are staying at the Mardi Gras RV Park in east New Orleans. It’s an unimpressive place – basically a parking lot for RVs, but there are few choices in this area, and it’s convenient. Today we are going to take a swamp tour at the Honey Island Swamp in Slidell, LA. Slidell is about an hour from where we’re staying; we arrive early in town, and, seeking a bathroom, we stop at the Slidell Historical Museum. It’s in the former Jail and City Hall. We are greeted by an older gentleman, who gives us the history of the town’s founder, millionaire John Slidell, and a guided tour – in painstaking detail - of the first floor of the museum – 3 rooms filled with framed newspaper clippings, an old desk and typewriter, and other artifacts from Slidell’s past. The former jail cells are devoted to exhibits to firefighters and police, including a touching tribute to the town’s only police officer to die in the line of duty, in 1975. The second floor is a Civil War exhibit; a young man gives us the historical tour, telling us earnestly about the black slaves who fought on the side of the Confederacy. Both of our tour guides are Southern gentlemen – and paid city employees, not volunteers, according to the younger one. Our unintended stop turns out to be interesting and informative – and yes, the museum had a bathroom too.
Our guide for our swamp tour is Captain Ted, a sun-browned beach bum and retired river ship master (he guided ships from the Gulf into the Mississippi River). Now he pilots a 24 passenger flatbottom boat through the 3-foot deep swamp. He’s a wealth of information and stories, all punctuated with “How about that?” and “Isn’t that somethin’?” in his N’awlins (born and raised) drawl. He regales us with facts (and a little fiction, I suspect) about denizens of the swamp - alligators, turtles, fish and swamp snakes; also Spanish moss, cypress and willow trees, lifers on the “Farm” (the Louisiana Penitentiary), interspersed with mouthwateringly detailed recipes using shrimp, arrowroot, nutria and other local delicacies. He points out the nutria hiding in the swamp brush. Nutria, contrary to its name, is a furry brown rodent that grows to 35 pounds and, Capt. Ted says, makes good eatin’ – and is low fat to boot. “We call it “the ‘Other’ other white meat,” he says. Local restaurant owners have tried to put it on their menu under a different name, but discriminating diners continue to turn up their nose at eating rat – even if it does meet FDA Food Pyramid guidelines. Capt. Ted, who loves to cook, confesses that he’s served nutria at his weekly luaus to high praise from unsuspecting guests who think they’re eating pork. Capt. Ted tells us that nutria reproduce so rapidly they are overtaking the swamp and killing the plants and trees, so the state government has put a bounty on them, paying $4 for each tail turned in. When he’s driving down the road and spots a dead nutria, he removes the tail, then spray paints a splash of red on the carcass “so I don’t waste time stopping for it on the return trip,” he says. The tails go in a plastic bag in his freezer; when he’s amassed 30 or 40 road kill tails, he turns them in for cash. His earnings on this, he says, can amount to $250 a month or more.
It’s a sunny warm day, perfect for sitting in a boat on the water. The swamp, however, is not as dramatic as I had imagined. A swamp is simply a forest that’s permanently flooded, and bright sunlight removes the midnight eeriness that swamps always have in the movies. Captain Ted says there are fish of all kinds swimming below us, but we can’t say anything in the murky muddy water. There are (non-native) water lilies blooming here and there, grasses emerging from the surface, and cypress “knees” that look like miniature statues protruding from the water. Each tree may have 15 or 20 or more of these knobby growths. It’s illegal to cut them, according to Capt. Ted, although cutting them doesn’t hurt the tree.
After 2 hours, Capt. Ted brings our boat back to the mouth of the swamp to the Cajun Encounters dock. It’s been an entertaining and enlightening 2 hours, and his recipes have made us hungry. We head to New Orleans to find Café du Monde – I want my beignets and I don’t care what time it is.
New Orleans has a serious parking problem. There are few public parking lots and most of them appear to be full; the onstreet parking is equally sparse, and every space is occupied. We drive around for 30 minutes looking for a place to park; I’m ready to bag it and go back when we finally spy a public parking lot with some empty spaces. We park the Jeep and walk toward the French Market. The streets and sidewalks are crowded with tourists, and when we arrive at Café du Monde, it’s apparent that half the tourists in town have the same idea I do. We decide to get our beignets to go, which turns out to be a dumb idea, because we stand in line endlessly, watching as people sit down at the bistro tables, order, eat their beignets and leave. And here I stand in line. It is 4 o’clock in the afternoon – time for happy hour – but my happiness depends on little square puffs of dough, deep fried and doused with a stormcloud of powdered sugar. I stand, and I wait – 15, 20, 25 minutes. At last, I place my order – coffee, café au lait, 2 orders of beignets – and I am handed the paper bag, greasy and hot to the touch. Steve and I sit down on a bench in the late afternoon sun and savor the mouth ecstasy of fried dough and sugar with a coffee chaser. It is heaven indeed – and we have enough left over to repeat this joy for breakfast tomorrow.
Saturday, March 19
We’ve left New Orleans. 2 days is plenty of time for me: New Orleans is like Disneyland for grownups. There’s little that’s real about the parts of it that are promoted to tourists – the French Quarter, the French Market, Bourbon Street, the plantations, even the Dixieland Jazz has given way, for the most part, to rock music and/or some sort of sanitized Cajun music that sounds like tourist muzak. The shops all have the same trinkets and T-shirts; all hawk Mardi Gras apparel, masks, beads and other ticky-tacky as though it were a 365-day-a-year festival. There may be another New Orleans, but it’s kept a secret from visitors.
However, the D-Day Museum is an unexpected surprise in New Orleans. We visit it for several hours Saturday morning. It provides a stark and painful picture of the realities and horror of war, especially this emblematic battle which is often portrayed in heroic terms. While it was a turning point in World War II, it was a killing field, in the water, on the beaches of Juno, Omaha, Utah and XXX, and in the forests and hedgerows where paratroopers and gliders, overloaded with jeeps, tanks and army troops, landed and died. After learning of the devastating loss of life at Normandy, I am far more aware of the significance of this event, and why the memories have such a powerful emotional impact for those who took part in this hellish battle.
We stop outside of New Orleans to get diesel fuel. There’s a family with a fifth wheel trailer at the pump next to us. Princess climbs out of our RV, and soon the family – grandmother, mother, 4 children and aunt – are all crowded around. Princess is the conversation starter - they tell us about their 3 boston terriers and Chihuahua at home and we exchange animal tales. We tell them about our cross-country journey; they tell us they are going to Biloxi for vacation. We have a long conversation while diesel fuel flows into the tank – it takes awhile to fill 50 gallons. At last, our respective tanks are full; we wish each other a safe and enjoyable journey and pull out.
On the road to Jackson . . . a four-lane highway though pastoral countryside. A field to the left is polka-dotted with cows – brown, black,white, tan – every cow color possible. At 70 miles per hour and waning light, it is not possible to take a photo. This is one of those Kodak moments I’ll have to retain in memory.
From New Orleans, we are going to visit my sister in Huntsville, AL. Since we’re going north, we decide to follow the Natchez Trace Parkway, a scenic 2-lane road with lots of historic sites along the way. We’re planning to pick it up in Utica, southwest of Jackson, MS, but the RV park there (the only one in the area) doesn’t answer or return our call about space availability, so we drive on to Jackson. Unfortunately, there are few RV parks in Jackson – one private park and 2 state parks. The private park is full and the others don’t answer our phone call. So we drive into Jackson and end up in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We check with the security agent to make sure it’s okay to park overnight – he tells us “Sure, stay for a month if you want.” Later that evening, there’s a knock on the door of our RV. It’s a Jackson police officer – she saw the open door of our motorhome (we’d opened it, but left the screen door closed, for air circulation) and wanted to make sure we hadn’t gone and unwittingly left the door open. What a pleasant surprise!
The next day, it’s raining, with rain predicted for the rest of the day throughout Mississippi. We decide there’s no sense and leaving today – there’s nothing scenic about a rain-sodden drive. We spend the day grocery shopping (at Wal-Mart, of course), cleaning house, and later, going to the movie – a really rotten John Travolta-Uma Thurman flick, Be Cool. What a waste of $11!
Monday, March 21
The Natchez Trace Parkway is a tree-lined commercial-free road – no billboards or ads of any kind or commercial trucks. The tr5ees are starting to bud with clouds of lavender and russet. To the right is a large body of water – the Ross Barnard Reservoir. Further on, we stop at a roadside rest area, Cypress Swamp, and get out to stretch our legs. The quiet is punctuated by a sound track of birds twittering and chirping in an avian symphony. I listen to the sound of nature, letting the musical stillness soak into my soul.
We stop at the Natchez Trace visitor center in Kiusko, birthplace of Oprah Winfrey, and pick up information about this early Native American north-south footpath and pioneer travel route. The 2 ladies at the center are warm and friendly, as we’ve found most all Southerners to be. They welcome us to Mississippi and encourage us to stay and explore their state.
March 22
Tupelo, MS – the birthplace of Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley’s presence is everywhere here – in photos and paintings in homage to him, in the street name – Elvis Presley Memorial Highway – and the Museum, “Fountain of Life,” “Walkway of Life” and the framed verbal tributes and accolades on the grounds where his birthplace home has become a shrine. We visit the site and tour the gift shop, passing on the opportunity to buy pink Elvis potholders imprinted with his recipe for fried peanut and banana sandwiches. We also decline the $6 admission fee for the museum, where we could see Elvis’ clothing, furnishings and other memorabilia. After all, tomorrow we’re going to Graceland, where he lived and died!
Tupelo is a friendly town. I love listening to people here and throughout Mississippi. Their voices are rich and melodic, and their southern accents warm and inviting, like butter and maple syrup poured slowly from a pitcher.
March 23
We are in Corinth, MS, in the northeast corner of Mississippi. From here, we drive in the Jeep 2 hours to Memphis. We are going to visit Graceland. We are so near to this iconographic landmark of Americana, it would be an oversight not to vist. Besides, Steve wants to see it.
Thoughts on Graceland:
- Money can't buy good taste. The place is a parody of '60s and '70s design excess, which would be funny except that it was not intended to be a parody.
- It is not a mansion. It looks to be about 4,000-5,000 square feet. But considering that Elvis bought it in the '50s for $100,000, back then it probably qualified.
- Elvis didn't name it. The previous owner named it after his wife, Grace.
- One word: Tacky. Allow me to expand on that description: Tacky, tacky, tacky.
From Corinth, we are going to Huntsville, Alabama to visit my sister, Linda. On the way, we stop at Shiloh Military Park, commemorating the Battle of Shiloh during the Civil War. It's a beautiful place, with groves of oak, peach and other trees. And it was a killing ground. We visit the cemetary there, where more than 3,000 Union soldiers are buried. Most of the endless rows of markers have only numbers on them - the majority of the dead could not be identified. The thousands of Confederate dead from that battle were buried in mass graves - 5 of them across the thousands of acres that make up the national park. It is a reminder again of the heartbreak and futility of most wars.
Easter Weekend, March 25-27
We spend 3 very enjoyable days with my sister and her husband Ronnie and their kids. Linda and Ronnie are very warm and hospitable, making us feel very much at home. We visit the Huntsville Botanical Gardens, the Rocket & Space Center, and Steve and Ronnie go to Lynchburg, TN to tour the Jack Daniels Distillery while Linda, her daughter Mary and I get in some Easter shopping - chocolate easter bunnies, Cadbury eggs, and while we're at it, a few items of apparel. At Rugged Wearhouse, a discount store, I score the deal of the year - a Ltd. skirt and a striped knit top for a buck each. We also have some great meals at their house - Linda and I make quite a team in the kitchen!
We don't get to see any of our family members very often, so it's good to see them and spend some quality time with them. Since writing about our visit with my sister Laura in Silverton, I've learned that my siblings expect a "review" of our visits with them. This is a perilous endeavor and not one I'm stupid enough to undertake. Let us just say that we have thoroughly and equally enjoyed our visits with every one of our relatives on both sides of the family, and look forward to seeing everyone throughout this journey!
posted by Anne-Marie | 1:40 PM
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