Harvey Rides again – Monday, day 3

Alto, Natchez, St Francisville & Baton Rouge

One interesting thing about where Anne & John live is all the history. Anne knows so much history on the original families who had owned the various homes and farms. Their house had been owned by the Sartor family. Mrs Lucy Sartor was locally famous as an artist who had painted mostly scenes from her life growing up in the area. In the attic Anne had found a sketchbook filled with pen sketches done by Lucy. What a treasure!

After breakfast we said our good-byes and headed off to Natchez. As we got close we recognized the turn to the RV park where we had stayed right by the Mississippi River. Of course we had to drive by. And by “drive by” I actually mean drive into the park and take pictures of where we had been and reminisce about the last time we were there. It seems like such a long time ago! I can’t believe it was just a little over 6 months. We got so excited as we crossed the Mississippi bridge!

We were pretty hungry by the time we got to Natchez, but we wanted to stop at one of the many interesting restaurants that had been closed last time we were there. We went to Natchez Midtown Grill, thinking it was a restaurant. When we got to the building and realized it was a walk up, we were disappointed but we decided to stay. The girl in front of us said they had great burgers so Bruce got a burger. I got the Voodoo Poboy, filled with chicken, shrimp, steak, onions & peppers. Which is kind of funny because onions & peppers are 2 of the things I always pick off of anything I’m eating. But now I’ve had them by choice 2 days in a row!

We missed out on the Under The Hill District last time we were here because our little cycle wouldn’t have been able to make it back up the hill. Since then Bruce fixed her so that she now has more power. I think at this very moment I am going to name her Little Jo because I’m sick of just calling her the little cycle. She needs a name. Sadly we were not able to ride her through Natchez this time because somehow the key did not make it on the trip with us. Bruce was sure that someone stole the key out of her ignition, but alas, Annie found it in the street in front of our house. So we’ll just say it’s a mystery how it got there.

I still wanted to go down and see the Under The Hill District. Apparently this was the district where the men of ill repute hung out back in the day. Saloons and brothels and the like. Now although a saloon is still open down there, it is just a few little shops and restaurants. We parked Harvey on the street above and walked down to check it out. We saw the bar where Jerry Lee Lewis got his start. Hopefully this will satisfy Bruce’s music fix because I totally forgot about going to the Delta Music Museum in nearby Ferriday until we were too far past it to go back.

In the saloon we met a guy named Doug who has been hitch-hiking around the country for 11 years. He is journaling all his adventures as well. It’s wild to think of all the people who have been in that saloon during the past 200 years.

Our next stop was the cute little town of St Francisville where we had planned to stop and see some plantations. But since it was 6:30 by the time we got there, nothing was open. We drove around a bit and admired the quaint old houses and then headed on down the Blues Highway to our RV Park near Baton Rouge.