VADOULOU

We had booked the restaurant for 8pm but went a little earlier to have an apéro. Again, we ended up chatting to an American couple from Atlanta, who had at least been out of America—they did Europe last year!  They were from Atlanta & were very interesting & she was called Louise, he was John & their surname was Thomas. I’m not kidding!

We had a lovely meal in the restaurant with a very jolly but efficient waitress, who earned her tip tonight. Although we had no concept of being rushed, here we are back in our room & it is not yet 10pm. There was a huge storm whilst we were eating, so I am hoping that the front had passed through & tomorrow will be fine again. 

                  

Some photos of the remaining pillars & sketch of the original house

Our SUV

The Mississippi

Our garden lodge 

                 

We left Vicksburg this morning after breakfast. As we were in a B & B the breakfast had to be taken between 8am & 9 am, a bit early for us but we managed it nevertheless. It was a fixed menu of coffee(tasteless), orange juice & then a plate of scrambled eggs, cheese grits, bacon, fruit & a biscuit of course. I’ll start with the biscuit—this is what I would call a bread bun but probably sourdough. The butter came in a little pack which listed the ingredients as ‘pulverised cream & salt’ with the added  rider ‘this product contains milk’. The scrambled egg was chopped up hard boiled egg with cream/butter added. The grits are made from oats so really it is a lump of porridge with cheese (tasteless) added, the bacon was crispy & given to Doug & the fruit minimal. 

We hit the road & got on Interstate 61 again without any difficulty. The only traffic was the early bird church goers. I think I can truly say that I have never seen so many churches & they continued right along our route. Because we had plenty of time we decided to take the scenic route so deviated off onto the Natchez Trace Route. Last night Culpepper had told us about the ruins of a vast house that had been devastated in a fire. We saw the signs for it so deviated a bit further to find it. All that is left are huge Corinthian pillars soaring into the sky. It must have been a vast place in its day but worth the detour. We continued along our alternative road, finding impeccable toilets in a rest area (we are really talking about the middle of nowhere) & after about 2 hrs we arrived at our next stop over. 

Again,  this is run as a B&B cum hotel & it has a dining room open to the public. It has ‘Gone with the Wind’ style architecture but this time we are in one of the garden rooms. We were too early to check in so went into town for visitor info & something to eat. Natchez is on the Mississippi which is huge at this stage. I don’t know whether the photos will capture the vastness of it. Again, Culpepper had recommended an eatery called Biscuits & Blues & this is where we refuelled. Very southern fare but did manage a salad each. I was reflecting on why dressings & sauces are so prevalent & have come to the conclusion that they are used to add flavour to intrinsically bland food. Doug added the theory that perhaps like in India they were used to disguise meat that had gone off. In this modern day of mass production I suspect that the sauces & dips bear no relationship to the original recipes. Talking of bears, we have passed several road signs indicating that bears are present, but I digress.

We are now installed & I have opened my case to find that something has leaked. Why it had to leak on clean clothes I’m not sure but at the moment our terrace & bathroom are festooned with drying clothes. There is no laundry service available here but one of the staff did offer to take my things away & launder them at home. How kind is that. 

We are here for two nights & we are going to treat ourselves to a bit of R&R before moving on to New Orleans. It is very warm, about 30* but there are storms forecast. We have had one downpour already but everything dries up so quickly once it stops. We are on the fringe of a weather front that is causing flash flooding in Texas & states to the west of us. 

After a dodgy start to our eating experience, what is it they don’t understand about ‘we will have our apero outside whilst we peruse the menu’, we eventually got everything sorted out & the food was lovely.

Some of our fellow guests are dancing around the pool as we came up to our room to prepare for bed. We have really enjoyed this interlude & according to Culpepper & his wife our next stop-off at Natchez is going to be spectacular.

We have rung ahead to our next sleep-over & booked the restaurant for tomorrow night. It is a holiday weekend (Memorial Day) & some places will not be open on Monday. We will be there for 2 nights before moving on to our final destination, New Orleans. 

Some musings along the way:

We have today, passed through the area occupied by the Choctaw Indians but I haven’t seen any evidence anywhere of any Native American Indians remaining.

Town centres are deserted but strip malls along the highways abound, huh???

4 way junctions are amazing, everyone stops, you figure the order that each person  arrives & you leave the junction in that same order, awesome!!

There are churches everywhere, just like being in Northern Ireland.

We met a guy in Clarksdale this morning who asked the inevitable question—‘where  y’all from?— when we replied(‘cos it’s easier) England, he said ‘my brother is over there at the moment as a missionary’.  After I had scooped my jaw off the ground, I replied along the lines of–perhaps he had a hard task ahead of him, the man had  the good grace to agree with me. Only in America!!!!

A demain L x