Natchez Trace Parkway: Natchez - July 2nd to 4th, 2023
Natchez Trace is a National Parkway which follows an historical foot path from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee. It is 444 miles long, crossing through three states. This post is the last of four posts on the Natchez Trace, covering Mileposts 195 to 0, from Jeff Busby to the town of Natchez, both in Mississippi. We camped northeast of Natchez at Natchez State Park.
Sunday we continued down the Natchez Trace Parkway. Our original plan was to stop and camp at Rocky Springs along the parkway. However, this was another National Park Service campground, with no hookups, but was free of charge. Again we opted to change our plans for electricity to run our air conditioner. There were still excessive heat warnings in the daily weather forecast. We opted to continue further down the parkway to Natchez State Park. Hopping online the night before, we were able to snag a site reservation, despite being the 4th of July weekend.
We only made a few stops along the parkway, the Jeff Busby Overlook, the Cypress Swamp, the Rocky Springs Town Site, and the Sunken Trace. The overlook was not spectacular, but it was the only overlook we’ve seen in the flat state of Mississippi, so we were thankful.
The Cypress Swamp was a short board walk through the swamp. We didn’t see much wildlife, but it was a fun trail.
The Rocky Springs Town Site was an old church and cemetery. There are also supposed to be a couple of rusting safes and several abandoned cisterns. However, the foot bridge over to the rest of the town site was closed off, probably because it is no longer safe to walk on.
The Sunken Trace is a section of the old trace, where the trail sunk deep in the soft ground, making a gully. It was neat to walk along it and imagine what it was like long ago.
The parkway passes by the city of Jackson. We opted to head into the center of town and go out to eat at Manship Wood Fired Kitchen, a place we found online. Since it was Sunday, they were only open until 2:30 pm and serving their brunch menu. The location of the restaurant seemed rather odd. It was in the middle of a large medical complex. The exterior of the restaurant was rather understated. You had to look hard to find the name of the place.
The place was hopping. When we arrived around 12:30 pm, they said it may be close to 30 minutes to get a table. We decided to sit in the atrium, in the air conditioning, and wait. They gave us a table after only about ten minutes. The food was definitely worth the wait, no matter how long the wait was.
Keith had the eggs, sausage, and gouda grits. Ann ordered the pork chop with eggs and gouda grits. The pork chop was huge. It’s a good thing our plan for dinner was a light meal. Everything was delicious and very flavorful. We can see why the place was so popular.
The restaurant is only about a mile from the Mississippi State Capitol building, but we decided not to stroll downtown Jackson. It was hot outside and, since we changed our camping plans, we had a longer drive that day. Instead, we stopped by a grocery store on the way back out of the city and got back on the parkway.
The lake at Natchez State Park was not as nice as the previous two campgrounds (Natchez Trace Parkway: Tishomingo - June 26th to 28th, 2023 and Natchez Trace Parkway: Tupelo - June 29th to July 1st, 2023). The water level of Natchez Lake looked extremely low, surrounded by lots of bare dirt. It might look prettier if the water level was higher. However, the sites were nicely spaced in the woods with concrete pads and partial hook ups along with an air-conditioned bathhouse with showers. Luckily we picked a site in loop B instead of loop A. Loop B looks newer and nicer than loop A, which is farther from the lake.
While it was cooler Monday morning, we turned off the air conditioner and taped off the AC vent. The bedroom is always cooler than the dinette area. The air conditioner is located right above the beds. There are also three ducted AC vents in the bedroom area, so having the cool air also coming out the AC unit vents is not necessary. The AC is also pretty loud. At night, we generally leave the AC fan on manual so it is not starting and stopping with the compressor, so it doesn’t go from quiet to both the fan and compressor kicking on and waking us up. A popular mod in the EKKO crowd is to tape off the vent in the AC unit, forcing more air to the ducted vents, so more air flows up to the dinette. The mod is also supposed to make it a little quieter. It seems to have made a difference, but we didn’t take any measurements to verify that.
When we started up the engine Monday morning, we heard a strange whine coming from the motor. Uh-oh, that is the symptom of the Balmar alternator going bad. It was under a recall notice, but there was no fix yet. Keith took a video of the error codes displayed on the alternator. We’ll have to keep an eye on that. The extra alternator is what charges our batteries while the engine is on. There are electrical hookups at our campground reservations for a while, so the alternator is not a necessity at this point, but we would like to have a resolution before we really need it.
It worked out that we were staying in Natchez State Park instead of Rocky Springs. Natchez State Park is much closer to Natchez, so we drove into town on Monday to check it out.
First we tried to finish up a couple of sights on the Natchez Trace Parkway. Mount Locust is a historic inn, but there was a closed gate across the road to reach it and a sign said it was closed. We’re not sure why.
The other stop was the Emerald Mound. Unlike the other mounds we saw along the parkway, this one is a large earthen platform, with a couple of mounds on top of it. The only mound larger than it is the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois. Because you are right up next to it, it is hard to get a good feel of its size. We followed the short trail up to the top of the flat plateau to get a better look.
For our visit to Natchez, we started at the Natchez Trace Visitor Reception Center, run by the National Park Service. They provided us with all sorts of brochures and a map of town. We left Red Tail (our Winnebago EKKO) at the Visitor Center and walked into the historic part of town, less than a mile from the Visitor Center.
The town was very interesting with so much to see. There are interpretative signs everywhere. There is the site of Fort Rosalie, St. Mary’s Cathedral, and a nice view of the Mississippi River from Natchez Bluff Park. But for us, the main attraction is the beautiful old architecture. There are 17 large homes or mansions that are open for tours. The tours typically cost $20 to $25 per person, run by different organizations or people. Tours of one of the homes, the Willam Johnson Home, is run by the National Park Service and is free of charge.
It was getting close to lunch time, so we made our way over to the Natchez Brewing Company, hoping to get a pizza for lunch, only to find out the brewery doesn’t open until 4 pm.
So we retraced our steps back to Wardo’s Poboys which looked like the only place that we saw was open. Many of the places were not open on Mondays and others may have been closed for the 4th of July holiday. Wardo’s is mainly a counter service joint with a few seats at a couple of counters inside and some tables outside in the back. We managed to snag a couple of stools at the counter overlooking the kitchen. Even though we could feel a little bit of the heat from the kitchen on our faces, there were a couple of small air conditioners behind blowing cool air on our backs. We were thankful we could get out of the heat outside. It was only in the high 80’s or low 90’s, but due to the humidity, it felt like it was in the 100’s.
The three cooks in the kitchen kept us entertained while we waited for our food as they busily prepared the food for the noon rush of orders. Our New Orleans style poboys were delicious. Ann enjoyed her spice sausage poboy with potato salad, while Keith savored the Wardo Poboy, with sliced roast beef and brown gravy, along with a bag of Zapps potato chips.
Then we braved the heat again. From Wardo’s, we zigzagged through the streets over to The Towers of Natchez, one of the historic homes. We admired all the buildings along the way, mostly other historic homes, both ones that gave tours along with others, some with plaques and others without. Then we circled back to Wardo’s for a cold drink to cool off in the air conditioning again. The lunch crowd had left by that time, so there was plenty of room for us inside.
After feeling revived, we wandered the streets up in the other direction, making our way over to the Malt Shop. Not all the buildings along the way were historical, but they seemed like they made an effort to blend the newer buildings in with the old. We were impressed by the Natchez Convention Center which borders Main Street. Although the convention center runs the whole length of the city block, the facade of the building was made to look like a row of store fronts. Nice job!
The Malt Shop was very busy that late afternoon. The Malt Shop is just an outdoor fast food stand. There was one large picnic table in the shade of the building, but it was crowded, with cars surrounding it, giving off heat from their engines that were kept running to keep the air conditioning going.
So after we waited in line and waited to get our orders, we walked several blocks over to Natchez Memorial Park to enjoy our treats while sitting on a bench in the shade. Along with a couple bottles of water, Ann got a chocolate malt while Keith had a vanilla shake. They really hit the spot. Listening to the sound of the beautiful fountain before us added to the pleasure.
Although there was more of the town that we wanted to see, the heat wore us down. We were ready to hike the mile back to Red Tail and call it a day. We made plans to return the following day.
There was one washer and dryer in the bathhouse at Natchez State Park, so we spent Tuesday morning washing a load of clothes. It is nice having the laundry in the campground. We were able to get a load done while we ate breakfast and got caught up on social media. We were ready to go almost at the same time as our normal morning routine. However, we decided to relax a little more and wait until after lunch before heading back into the town of Natchez.
The first thing on our agenda in Natchez was to take a tour of the Longwood House. It is the largest octagonal house in the United States. Construction on the house began just before the Civil War. The first floor was finished, but the rest of the house never was completed. The tour was very fascinating and worth the $25 admission. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about the history of the house, the family that owned it, and the generally history of the area during the Civil War time period.
After the tour, we drove downtown and parked in the lot next to the Natchez Bluff and the bandstand. It was only 3 pm and the 4th of July festivities didn’t start until 5 pm. At 3 pm, the town was still pretty dead, with most of the businesses closed. On our drive in, we saw that the Pig Out Inn Barbecue was open, so we walked over there for something cold to drink. It was too early to eat dinner, but the food smelled pretty good. We split a Grateful Jam sandwich and order of curly fries. The sandwich had brisket with pimento cheese and bacon jam on a toasted bun. Pretty tasty.
Needing to work off those calories, we went for a short walk up and down Main Street. Some clouds had rolled in, so it wasn’t quite as hot as the day before. However, we didn’t really feel like taking a long stroll. After walking along the bluff, people were starting to set up their chairs and coolers near the band stand. We grabbed our camp chairs and found a spot in the grass just far enough from the bandstand that the music wouldn’t be too loud. By that time, the first band was starting to warm up.
Then we just chilled for the rest of the evening. Two different bands played. A bagpiper came out and played one song. People were playing corn hole. Kids were playing with hula hoops. A couple of food trucks were parked nearby. We listened to the music, drank fresh squeezed lemonade and split an order of lemon pepper chicken wings from a food truck. A typical 4th of July celebration.
The clouds brought a few sprinkles of rain, just enough to cool things down a little bit, but not enough to threaten the fireworks. The fireworks started promptly at 9:30 pm. They were set off from a barge in the middle of the Mississippi River. We lined up along the bluff with all the other people for a first row view of the fireworks display.
After the 20 minute show, crowds of people were trying to leave the area all at the same time. We took our time walking back to Red Tail. There was still a long line of cars just trying to get out of the parking lot. Instead of getting in line, we pulled the Blue Bell out of the freezer and dished out a couple bowls of ice cream. By the time we finished our dessert and washed the dishes, the lines were gone. Have we mentioned before how we like having everything with us in our rig?
We pulled into our camp site around 10:30 pm. Luckily the temperatures had cooled down enough that we didn’t need to plug in the electrical in the dark. It was nice to be able to sleep with the windows open again, listening to the sounds of the insects and frogs.
Natchez was the only location along the Natchez Trace Parkway that we felt we could have spent more time exploring. There was plenty of history and beautiful old architecture in the area. Natchez has a wonderful small town charm. We’ll be back.
Check out our related video: Natchez Trace Parkway: Natchez
(Ann)