Little Halloween today!

[Murfreesboro]

Lol. You are so mean!

If I arrive early early enough I may be able to go out to dinner with my former classmates. We'll see.

[Andybev01]

I'm thinking I'll bake some pumpkin spice cake and maybe watch Trick 'r' Treat.

[Murfreesboro]

That sounds like fun!

[Andybev01]

The weather is suitably gloomy today.

Happy little halloween everybody!

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

Man, that was a busy weekend! I hope that everybody here had as much fun as I did.

On Friday we had a Little Halloween party for the kids and their friends, a few of them stayed over for the night and everybody dressed up and we watched movies until 2am. Then on Sat. we decided to have a huge party for them and we rolled a few days into one big celebration for the kids, including the 14th being pi/pie day, the 16th for SCSA day, and the 17th for St. Patty's day. They partied at the arcade for a few hours before we brought them back here to watch more movies, between the arcade and the party here those kids went through 10 pizzas that day, and they still had room for cake and pie. I'm just glad that they are still young enough to enjoy these fun parties, because they are going to be teenagers soon and then they will be embarrassed to be seen in public with us.

Murf, when you get back I want to hear about your adventures this weekend.

[Andybev01]

Our weather has current very depressing.

Blue skies sunshine and temperatures in the mid seventies , flowers and trees are in bloom...

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

Our weather has current very depressing.

Were you inebriated when you typed that? Because me not understand you.

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[Andybev01]

I don't imbibe so, no.

I can only take so much sunshine before I break down and my inner Poe chimes in, pining for dark and dank atmosphere.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

It's been rainy and gloomy here the whole week ... you would like it.

I honestly like both types of weather, sometimes I like the rain and sometimes I like to feel the sun on my skin, I guess it depends on my mood.

As I get older I find that I can't stand the snow the way that I used to, now I understand why people move to Florida when they get older.

[Andybev01]

Like i've said before , the only good snow is hollywood snow.

[Murfreesboro]

Hey hey!

Sorry I've been AWOL. I hit the ground running last week when I got back, trying to get household routines back to the way I do them. Then this week I've had one medical exam after another, since my annual checks had to be deferred because of January's ice storm. I've got four in a row this week.

Short version: we had a great time.

Longer version: we took the Natchez Trace the whole way, both down and back. It's two-way traffic with a speedi limit of 50, but I preferred it to the interstate because it was more direct, and there was very little traffic on it. There are historical markers everywhere, but we didn't stop. A number of years ago our family had visited Meriwether Lewis's grave near Hohenwald, TN. If you're into Lewis and Clark, as I am, that's a must. We got into Jackson in time to check into our hotel and make the dinner with my friends. Our high school English teacher was there, too. Lydia was the only young'un there. Everybody said they knew who I was at once because she looked just like me when I was young. It was an amazing, incredible get-together. Two of the people there I had known since kindergarten.

On Saturday I drove my daughter around my old stomping grounds. I showed her the house my mother had built, my old neighborhood, and the Belhaven historic district, which is where I went to college (walking distance from my old house). This area was always somewhat up scale but has become more beautiful in recent years, because it's all being showcased as a historic neighborhood now. I drove her downtown and showed her the only antebellum landmarks in the city (the Old Capitol, the Governor's Mansion, and City Hall). Everything else was burned by Sherman, and the city was known as Chimneyville for 20 yrs after the Civil War, because only the brick chimneys were left standing. Those three buildings were spared because Sherman stayed in the Governor's Mansion and used the Old Capitol as a hospital for his soldiers. The City Hall was spared because the Masons met on the third floor (and still do, as far as I know), and Sherman was a Mason.

[Murfreesboro]

Saturday night we attended the big party at my former teacher's house. More people showed up to it than to the dinner the night before, and some were from out of state, like me. Our former teacher left teaching a year or so after our class and went to law school, where she made good. Her house is in a park-like gated community and looks like a museum in its furnishings and art work. My daughter said afterward that it was the most beautiful private home she'd ever seen, "and I've seen some beautiful homes." I know she has, both at Sewanee and on her travels. When she visited a college friend in Malibu several years ago, they spent an afternoon in the home of someone who votes at the Oscars. The get-together was fun, sweet, and poignant, especially since three of us were no longer alive to be there. We just felt a lot of love.

[Murfreesboro]

On Sunday morning we attended church downtown at St Andrew's Episcopal Cathedral, where I'd grown up and sung in the children's choir, etc. It's across the street from the Governor's Mansion but not as old, of course. It's a neo-Gothic structure from the 1880s, but very beautiful. Although no one there now remembers me, everyone took an interest in us, and several people made a point to show Lydia around the church and talk with us. Some even followed us out onto the street.

After that we hit the Trace again and headed toward Natchez. It's on the Mississippi River about 100 miles SW of Jackson. Shortly before we arrived there we exited the Trace to take the short loop to the Windsor ruins, an iconic site in Mississippi. It was the largest antebellum mansion in the state but burned to the ground in 1890. Now only 23 huge charred columns remain.

[Murfreesboro]

We checked into the Natchez Grand Hotel that evening, which is right on the river. You look across to Louisiana. We'd left the party the previous night with lots of food, so we stayed in our hotel room, nibbled our leftovers, and watched the Oscars. It stormed that night, but we slept through it. The next day was bright but chilly. However, we'd planned for that, so we weren't cold.

We had one day for Natchez, but we made good use of it. We toured three mansions, Melrose, Stanton Hall, and Longwood. I was surprised that all these homes were pretty much within walking distance of each other. In Gone with the Wind, you get the idea that the big mansions were out on the plantations, but at least in Natchez, they are town houses. There are a great many of them you can tour, maybe 15 or 20. We did well to see three in one day. Melrose is a good place to start, because it is run by the National Park Service and costs a little less. All the tour guides were good. The other houses are privately owned , but for some reason you get a discount if you tour both Stanton Hall and Longwood.
Longwood is an octagonal structure and was never finished, but the family lived on the first floor for decades after the war.

That evening we had sort of surfeited on old houses, so we ate at a restaurant in an area called Natchez Under the Hill. This was the red light district in the 19th century, but now it is a tourist draw. It was walking distance from our hotel, so we strolled back along the river.

The next day we drove back up the Trace toward home. It is 449 miles from Natchez to Nashville, but we exited before we hit Nashville. We saw deer leaping across the Trace in the late afternoon, and I didn't want to hit one. We'd left Natchez c 9:30 and got home c 7:30.

Except for one afternoon in Oxford many years ago, Lydia had never been to Mississippi before. She'd volunteered to go on this trip, but she'd been apprehensive. She'd read that Jackson was "the murder capital of the South" and that the Trace was dominated by "drug kingpins." So I was pleased that this trip changed her feeling about my home state. She came home saying that "Mississippi is a lovely state," and I think she'd be happy to go again.

[Murfreesboro]

A footnote: you can tour the homes in Natchez year-rp
Iund, but they have two "pilgrimage" seasons when they really put on the dog for tourists. One is mid-March to mid-April, and the other is October. We missed the spring pilgrimage by a couple of days. It involves local guides in period costumes, fancy dinners, and (I think) special entertainments, maybe demonstrations of period dancing, that sort of thing. A back-in-time vibe. But you can eat at one mansion, and get a fancy Southern feast, year-round. Some are also bed & breakfasts. We didn't do that because we were watching our pennies. But it would be fun. There are also ghost tours, of course, but we skipped that activity, too, for now. It's a place I'd love to visit again, and it would combine easily with a trip to New Orleans or the coast.