On the Mississippi

This is a picture of Larry from yesterday at Meriwether Lewis' grave at Grinder's Inn on the Natchez Trace Parkway.

Tonight we're right on the Mississippi River in Vidalia, Louisiana, right across the river from Natchez. We had a great meal in Natchez tonight at a place called Cock in the Walk - catfish, cornbread, hush puppies, slaw, marinated onions, fried shrimp. Very good stuff.

We finished the Natchez Trace Parkway today. There was a lot more traffic, as it seemed more people used the Parkway as part of their regular daily route. This Parkway is very popular with bicyclists (not much up and down at all) and we saw many of them today. It has been very interesting to learn more about the Native Americans of this area - Chickasaw, Choctaw, Natchez, Cherokee, and others. We saw many burial mounds and the remains of villages, and learned too much about the sad history of how they were removed from their lands.

Tomorrow we'll head down the river to New Orleans. We have the Paul and Carol Hinderlie self-guided eating tour in hand, and are looking forward to it! Larry has been there briefly, and I never have. So it will be fun to explore and see as much as we can in about 36 hours. (Nice that the New York Times travel section publishes those little "New Orleans in 36 hour" pieces - a good guide!)

Tomorrow's blog will be from New Orleans!