A September to Remember

August has ended and we have let the holidayer’s (yes, that’s a word) enjoy their Labor Day and we are now on the road on our way from northern New Jersey to Asheville, North Carolina. But we must make a stop along the way in Charlottesville, Virginia to say hello to our very good friend Laurie.  We will miss her husband Rowley, who is on a consulting gig in Chicago.

Laurie came to our hotel and picked us up to go to a local restaurant that had good ratings called The Green Leaf in Waynesboro, VA. The food was great and the restaurant was a bit on the high end side. I tell you this, because we sat there enjoying our food and laughing quite loudly as Laurie told us of some of her more funny life stories. We continued to sip our drinks (dinner finished, the bill paid) telling more stories as the staff stared at us wishing that we would move on. Not that the place was full, but you get the picture. As we left the looks on the staff’s faces gave us more to chuckle about. I would say the evening was a great success.

The next morning, we decided to drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway for a bit. The parkway could take us all the way to Asheville. Pat’s giving us the wave, so it’s time to go.

I didn’t realize that the Blue Ridge Parkway was such a small road.

Not only is it small it twists and turns and although it has a speed limit of 45 mph, there are times that you do not feel safe driving at that speed. Of course the locals that come up behind you feel you should be driving at that speed and will get right on your bumper to try and persuade you to speed up.

This is just one of the view that we had along the drive. After we had gone just 30 miles, we decided we had enough and decided it was time to head back to the big road. Getting off the parkway is a chore in itself. The road off turned into a switchback that dropped us several hundred feet over just a few miles, you would have thought we were back out west in the Rockies. When we got back on the big road, we realized that our 30+ mile excursion had only gotten us 18 miles closer to Asheville.

I looked into staying at the Grove Park Inn with the famous Donald Ross designed golf course right on the property. Where Pat could have a nice spa while I went out and played a round of golf. The 2-day package, worked up into the range of $1,100.00. After choking on that, I found that I could play the municipal course also a Donald Ross design for $22 and we could do a 2-day stay at the Comfort Suites for less than $300. The downside was that the Muni course was not well maintained, the upside was that instead of a spa treatment, Pat went and took a tour of  the home of the local gentry, at the Biltmore Estate.

Shabby looking place, eh? This is a snap taken up from the garden walk. I dropped Pat off in front of the mansion, and that was a 2-mile drive from the front gate. To get back to the front gate was a 6-mile drive, quite the estate. Pat spent the better part of the day there and I’m sure could have gone back and done it again the next day if we were not off and running for our next destination.

That afternoon we went into the River Arts District. Here we found many small studios along with some fine restaurants. We found one called All Souls Pizza where I had a great Ruben Sandwich and Pat a really nice pizza that had a polenta crust. This might have been the sticks of North Carolina, but it was anything but the sticks. We think this is a town that deserves another visit.

The next morning, we were off to Tuscaloosa. Our purpose is not to visit Tuscaloosa but to visit the nearby Mound State Park. Well I could not understand why hotel rates were so high until we arrived and realized that we had arrived in the middle of a home game for the University of Alabama, Go Tide!

Ever since our visit to the Indian mounds in Cahokia many years ago our interest in them has been high, so a chance to visit the second largest “city of mounds” was a must. Mound State Park is located about 16 miles south of Tuscaloosa and is operated by the University of Alabama. While the grounds are not much more than a bunch of mounds of dirt their story is worth the effort of stopping and learning.

The tallest one in the center was the Chief’s.

Pat wanted to get up high to look over the field.

Just think each of those mounds were built a bucket of dirt at a time, now that’s a lot of buckets. The pond you see in front of you is one of many depressions found on the property and caused by taking those many buckets of dirt away. These ponds were then used as fish farms. These were cities that fed thousands of inhabitants. Trade routes were all over North America, but the civilization was mostly located east of the Mississippi. This civilization started fading away around the 1200’s. This park also contained a wonderful museum with many artifacts that had been unearthed during many archeological digs.

We were done with our tour and on our way to Jackson, Mississippi before lunch. Because we were well away from the interstate, our next 40 or so miles were through the Alabama country, so it was quite scenic but not very speedy. We arrived in Jackson late in the day, tired and ready for a break. We were booked into the hotel for two nights, but decided as we approached to make it one night and spend the next day wandering down the Natchez Trace.

The Trace was not as slow as the Blue Ridge because it was basically flat and straight. Speed limit of 45 and the absence of shoulders made it a simple roadway with moderate speeds. As usual, we still had people coming up and riding our bumper. Fortunately, we were stopping at all of the pull outs.

This Methodist Church, built in 1837, is what is left of the town of Rocky Springs. They only do special services at this church these days.

That’s Pat standing a bit of the original bit of Trace. You can see how the traffic had worn the path down below the lay of the land (that which I am standing on). According to the literature, much of the original Natchez Trace is on private land today.

We arrived in Natchez late morning and went directly to the welcome center to find a good place for lunch and a good tour of the city. Lunch was at The Magnolia Grill which was located right on the Mississippi.

After a great lunch we stepped outside and took a better picture.

After lunch we headed back to the welcome center where we boarded a golf cart for a tour of the city with a young lady that comes from Hackensack, NJ, ain’t it a small world. She took us around town showing us some of the old homes complete with great stories.

This one we really liked because it is a converted firehouse.

Then you have your basic mansion.

Then there was this little shack that was home of the mayor of Natchez during the civil war. It seems he surrendered the city to avoid the possibility of damage to his fair city, but he was so distraught, he died of a heart attack a week later. It was a wonderful tour.

The next day we started on our way to Coushatta to join our friends Al & Mary. But alas, there was another stop that was a surprise for us and that was Frogmore Plantation in, where else but Frogmore, Louisiana. This was just along the road and we decided it was worth a stop.

Our first view was this Gin Mill but this was only part of the tour. We were taken through a section that was set aside that showed the living and working areas for the slaves and later free laborers that lived and worked on the cotton plantation. The last of the tour was to enter the gin mill, where we saw this

Gin machine that if it were started up today would work as well as it did in its working day. What a great stop this was.

We continued on and met up with our friends at the Coushatta Casino in Kinder, LA. We booked a Chalet located at the Red Shoes RV Park on the property. The cost was only $59/night, so who could resist a deal like that? The Chalet turned out to be a park model, but still a good deal for the money. The Casino offers a number of restaurants and don’t forget all the gambling you could possibly want.

The next morning, Al and I headed for the golf course, yes, that’s why we are really here. Well maintained and worth the price on the senior days. No, I didn’t take any pictures.

We traveled from the Casino to Lake Jackson a bit south of Galveston using the ferry out of Port Bolivar into Galveston. I have to tell you this is a great way to avoid the traffic of Houston. Al wants to stop and visit his son and daughter-in-law here in Lake Jackson and what the heck, maybe we can get in a round of golf. Well, the golf didn’t happen but visiting with his family and some other friends. Yes, we did get a few pictures I would like to share.

Yes, here are Al and Mary and if you look above them, you can see Pat looking out onto the gulf.

While we were there along the jetty, I could not help but watch this fellow throwing the net to gather some fish.

Although with all of the throws I watched, I don’t think I saw him pulling any fish out.

When we went over toward the port, I had to stop to take a picture of this ship

I can’t believe how many cars this ship can move across the ocean, just one big wow!

OK, one last picture.

I took this out the window as we are approaching home. It is a simple picture but the point of the picture is the flat land and the big sky.

Well we’re home and we had a great trip getting here. We’ll put the blog to bed until the next trip. Good night y’all.