A Short Trip Down the Trace

Date: Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Parked at: Riverview RV Park, Vidalia, LA

Note: to catch up on my blogging, I have published several posts here within a few hours of each other. Please take a moment to go back to ‘Older Posts’ at the bottom of this page to be sure you’ve not missed any!

With a nice RV site, and an interesting area like Natchez to explore, we decided to spend more time in this area, particularly since the weather to the North appeared to be getting nothing but worse.

We were getting mixed responses on whether or not we should do the Natchez Trace Parkway on our trip north. For this reason we decided to take the jeep and do a little exploring in that direction. We travelled the first 10-15 miles of the southernmost part of the Trace.

We did not consider the road narrow as some had mentioned. And we actually liked the idea of only driving 50 mph. However, we could see where, as many had said, it could get boring after awhile unless you took the many cut-offs to points of interest. That said, when we took the cut off’s we realized that you really wouldn’t know until after you were committed in some cases whether or not the road was ok for a 40 ft motorhome with toad.

Our conclusion: Don’t take the Trace unless its taking us exactly where we want to go. With the rig, we would be too chicken to take cut-offs to points of interest when we couldn’t see that there was amble room for our rig to park and turnaround. We probably would do nothing but drive the Trace without stopping and that would end up boring.

That said, we did really enjoy our short time there with the jeep, particularly going to see the Emerald Mound site.

Ok, yes, it’s nothing but a big hill. But, to Ken and I, being able to spend some time at a place like this that was sacred to the natives some 1000 or more years ago, well, it has a special feel.

Now to re-enforce just how good the food is at Pig Out Inn, Ken and I decided that we needed to check it out one more time for Thursday lunch. My favorite foods there are the brisket and the baked beans. They even have these scrumptious looking little $1.75 single serving pies, pecan, sweet potato, buttermilk….ok, we didn’t try any simply because we were just too full.

We went back to the RV park so the dogs could get in a long walk. They were a bit of a handful because of the abundance of mockingbirds in the area who were noisily vying for attention.

Ken and I spent about an hour in late afternoon at the pool, enjoying the sunshine and company of some fellow RVers. (I didn’t get this picture until later, hence the rainy, gray skies).

We went back in to town for dinner at the Biscuit and Blues Restaurant. They are famous for their biscuits which are sweet and served with a whipped butter and marmalade spread. We tried the crawfish and mushroom beignets for an appetizer which was made famous in book by one of our favorite authors Greg Iles in the “Quiet Game”. I had the Eggplant Orleans and Ken had catfish.

Ok, so it was back to the rig to check out what was going on the the Midwest storm front and then call it a night.

Hugs, C