11:06 PM |
It was only 4:30, and I wasn't quite ready to hit a Holiday Inn Express. Checked the map and saw that it wasn't too far to the other side of Baton Rouge. There was a cool place I wanted to stay at, The Cajun Village. They have shotgun shacks that you can rent for the night. They rescued them from somewhere else and they were genuine Cajun digs. This was very groovy, but a ways off the main road. I decided to take the I-whatever because it seemed like the nice road had a lot of stoplights at that point. I was getting fairly close to New Orleans, and was hoping I hadn't missed my turn to Darrow. Just then, the Attractions blue sign came up, with Cajun Village on it. I got off. I drove a fair bit toward Darrow, and found that I was in a swamp, sort of, between huge refineries. Shades of Huntington, West Virginia. Kept on driving. This seemed okay because Cajuns don't live near any I-whatevers. They do live on bayous, so this didn't look particularly promising. The marsh was too civilized. Kept on driving. Finally hit a tee in the road. Wasn't sure which way to go. Stopped in parking lot of some kind of convenience store/liquor store with a lot of black men hanging around in the parking lot. Now before Woody, I never would have stopped here, but now it's all good.
This is C.J. and Lee. Lee hesitated in speaking his name, so I wonder if this was an alias. Remember, I scare black people. I asked where I was. Darrow. Where you going? Don't know. What is there to do in Darrow. Drink (laugh). They were definitely drinking. So where can I get something to eat? There was a vacant stare. I was hoping to get a bead on some soul/southern/homemade/BBQ/fried chicken kind of place. Suddenly, a light. You go around here, it goes to a y, and then to the red light (they're never green lights or even traffic lights here, they're always red lights). (unintelligible) is there, and then (unintelligible) but I think they're closed. If not there, go to the blinking light and across the street is The Cabin. This was good. First, black people give good directions, as I've told you. Second, I was actually looking for The Cabin restaurant, because the shacks were supposed to be there.
Headed over, passing Bocuse and another big plantation, getting to the flashing light and finding The Cabin. I still hadn't heard from the shack lady, so I walked right in and asked if they had space. It turns out that The Cabin is owned by the same people, but they are nowhere near each other. I should call Theresa. I did. She answered. Theresa was very harried, as she had people coming over. She asked me for my name, address and credit card number. You know, she said, there won't be anyone over there but you. I'm okay, I live alone in the country. She told me to meet her at The Coffee House. I was there. It is part of Cajun Village. Cajun Village is sort of cute with all these rescued shacks and general mayhem like the Shack Up Inn. Turns out the cabins aren't there. They are just down the street on a little gravel road. It is getting dark. My husband will be up in five or six minutes, she said. I slapped a mosquito. Phone rings. My husband is there. Okay, where is there? Honey, you are just going to have to get yourself turned right. She said this in an annoyed manner. I am getting kind of weirded out. I just sat there. Couldn't get directions right at all. I decided to leave. Oh shit, I'm locked in. The Coffee House girl just left and shut the gates behind her. Called Theresa. They're not locked. Opened gate. Got on iPad to see if Bocuse had any rooms. They do. Saw headlights in my rear view mirror. I knew very well that this was husband, but I didn't want to stay in the shacks anymore. I was scared. I seem to have a very poor attitude when it's dark and I'm tired. He pulled up. I took off. He whistled. I took off even faster. He followed me. I pretended I didn't see him. He kept on following me. I was flying through all the refineries with swamp on either side and no shoulder. I was going 55 at least, and couldn't see the curves. Remember, Woody's lights suck and I am blind at night. I was sure I was going to be a plate of liver with a nice Chianti. I dodged off at the last second before a bridge. He flew by. I kept on scrambling through the refineries. More lights behind me. Did he know the back way around? Holy shit. Drove another 5 miles in I don't know what direction but these are different refineries. All of the pipes and tubes and stuff are lit up, just like in Huntington. I just needed to get the hell out of there. And then a sign: Bocuse 5.3 miles. Prayed lights behind me weren't husband. Headed to Bocuse.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, assorted miscreants: Get your ass to this Holiday Inn Express, conveniently located just outside New Orleans. You know this hotel is something special when you walk in. There is music playing which may or may not be a good thing, as you never know if this encourages people in the room next door to really blast it. Cool sofa. When you check in, my girl Stacy will give you directions on how to use your shower. Now this may sound odd, but you gotta check this thing out. Even Monmouth doesn't have one of these. There is still the soap you can't get out without a scissors, but you don't need it because there is actually body wash in the shower. Extra towels are in drawers below the sink. There is a groovy translucent fan and a gigantic chair and ottoman with room enough for two. Flat screen. Whatever you call that sink that's over the counter and not under it. Jade green glass countertop. They didn't forget my choice of pillows, and they have Smart Coffee, with a Cuisinart coffee maker. Orange Pekoe and Black Cut Pekoe, caffeinated and decaf. $103. My imaginary boyfriend and I are very, very happy, even though I can't get the shower to work quite right.
Had rest of Historic Ruths caramels for dinner. Signed up for bonus 3,000 points on Holiday Inn Express Priority Member site. I am going to take another shower is the morning.
This is C.J. and Lee. Lee hesitated in speaking his name, so I wonder if this was an alias. Remember, I scare black people. I asked where I was. Darrow. Where you going? Don't know. What is there to do in Darrow. Drink (laugh). They were definitely drinking. So where can I get something to eat? There was a vacant stare. I was hoping to get a bead on some soul/southern/homemade/BBQ/fried chicken kind of place. Suddenly, a light. You go around here, it goes to a y, and then to the red light (they're never green lights or even traffic lights here, they're always red lights). (unintelligible) is there, and then (unintelligible) but I think they're closed. If not there, go to the blinking light and across the street is The Cabin. This was good. First, black people give good directions, as I've told you. Second, I was actually looking for The Cabin restaurant, because the shacks were supposed to be there. 
Headed over, passing Bocuse and another big plantation, getting to the flashing light and finding The Cabin. I still hadn't heard from the shack lady, so I walked right in and asked if they had space. It turns out that The Cabin is owned by the same people, but they are nowhere near each other. I should call Theresa. I did. She answered. Theresa was very harried, as she had people coming over. She asked me for my name, address and credit card number. You know, she said, there won't be anyone over there but you. I'm okay, I live alone in the country. She told me to meet her at The Coffee House. I was there. It is part of Cajun Village. Cajun Village is sort of cute with all these rescued shacks and general mayhem like the Shack Up Inn. Turns out the cabins aren't there. They are just down the street on a little gravel road. It is getting dark. My husband will be up in five or six minutes, she said. I slapped a mosquito. Phone rings. My husband is there. Okay, where is there? Honey, you are just going to have to get yourself turned right. She said this in an annoyed manner. I am getting kind of weirded out. I just sat there. Couldn't get directions right at all. I decided to leave. Oh shit, I'm locked in. The Coffee House girl just left and shut the gates behind her. Called Theresa. They're not locked. Opened gate. Got on iPad to see if Bocuse had any rooms. They do. Saw headlights in my rear view mirror. I knew very well that this was husband, but I didn't want to stay in the shacks anymore. I was scared. I seem to have a very poor attitude when it's dark and I'm tired. He pulled up. I took off. He whistled. I took off even faster. He followed me. I pretended I didn't see him. He kept on following me. I was flying through all the refineries with swamp on either side and no shoulder. I was going 55 at least, and couldn't see the curves. Remember, Woody's lights suck and I am blind at night. I was sure I was going to be a plate of liver with a nice Chianti. I dodged off at the last second before a bridge. He flew by. I kept on scrambling through the refineries. More lights behind me. Did he know the back way around? Holy shit. Drove another 5 miles in I don't know what direction but these are different refineries. All of the pipes and tubes and stuff are lit up, just like in Huntington. I just needed to get the hell out of there. And then a sign: Bocuse 5.3 miles. Prayed lights behind me weren't husband. Headed to Bocuse. Hit another plantation I was sure was Bocuse but it wasn't. I wasn't sure if I passed Bocuse or if it was farther down the road. I stopped in this driveway to get on my iPad again. In retrospect, I'm not sure what I was trying to find on the iPad, because it is not a GPS, and even if it were, I didn't know the address of where the two plantations are. Car pulls up behind me in the driveway blocking me in. My life is over. Twenty-something urbanitekay. Pulled in driveway because they were now blocking me in. Went around huge parking lot and blindingly lit plantation. Phone ringing. I know it's Theresa, and I'm ignoring it. If husband caught up with me, I thought I'd pretend I wasn't me, but he already knows what my car looks like, and you just can't hide Woody. I thought I'd pretend anyhow. I thought of him making Theresa call me again and note that the phone in the car was ringing. I decided to make a run for it, hoping Bocuse was down the road, and I hadn't missed it. Lights behind me. Squeal into Bocuse driveway. Lights go past. I was safe. But there was only one car in the lot. I just couldn't.
Sped out, hoping that this was the right road, pretty sure it was, but lately my directions have been all messed up. Ten minutes. Seems to be more cars driving up there. Get there. Lights are refineries. Keep on going, holding breath. Hallelujah! I-whatever. I have never been so happy to see an I. Stopped for gas. Checked iPad for nearest Holiday Inn Express. Baton Rouge, no. New Orleans Airport, no. La Place. Where the fuck is La Place? Wherever it is, I am finding it. Fly down I-whatever. Getting close to New Orleans. Giving up. Will stay at any airport hotel, even though I hate airport hotels. Just then, a sign. Holiday Inn Express! I get off I-whatever and go the wrong way. Turn around, very close to going on the wrong side of divided highway. I told you, I don't see well in the dark. Someone should take me off the road. Tried other side. Could not see it, but.... A small green sign at the McDonald's. Holiday Inn Express.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, assorted miscreants: Get your ass to this Holiday Inn Express, conveniently located just outside New Orleans. You know this hotel is something special when you walk in. There is music playing which may or may not be a good thing, as you never know if this encourages people in the room next door to really blast it. Cool sofa. When you check in, my girl Stacy will give you directions on how to use your shower. Now this may sound odd, but you gotta check this thing out. Even Monmouth doesn't have one of these. There is still the soap you can't get out without a scissors, but you don't need it because there is actually body wash in the shower. Extra towels are in drawers below the sink. There is a groovy translucent fan and a gigantic chair and ottoman with room enough for two. Flat screen. Whatever you call that sink that's over the counter and not under it. Jade green glass countertop. They didn't forget my choice of pillows, and they have Smart Coffee, with a Cuisinart coffee maker. Orange Pekoe and Black Cut Pekoe, caffeinated and decaf. $103. My imaginary boyfriend and I are very, very happy, even though I can't get the shower to work quite right. 
Had rest of Historic Ruths caramels for dinner. Signed up for bonus 3,000 points on Holiday Inn Express Priority Member site. I am going to take another shower is the morning.
Holiday Inn Express : LA PLACE
 |  | 4284 Highway 51 La Place LA 70068 United States |
Hit the happy trail again. Shortly made the Louisiana state line and just had to stop at the information center. This is Dot. She was very helpful. I wanted to go to plantation country. This is it, Dot said. She gave me maps of St. Francisville, with the plantations helpfully pre-highlighted in blue. Don't go to number one because it is just gardens. I asked her where the ladies room was, not that I needed it but my mama (I am getting southern) told me never to pass one up. Dot agreed. As I went outside some old guy's dog was peeing on the privets. Highway sign 1:
Wilkinson Correction Area
No Stopping 18 Miles
What the heck is a correction area? Another one of these soil erosion eco-improvement zones?
Highway sign 2:
Wilkinson Correctional Facility
It's a really good thing that I didn't stop to look at my map for those 18 miles. Angola is just down the road.
I missed the sign for the first plantation, but there are about half a dozen around here and I don't know one from the other, except Dot said one of them is the most haunted. Wish I could remember which. I want to go there because I got gypped out of my paranormal activity at the Duff Green Mainsion because they did not put me in the Dixie Room. Passed Cathey's Taxes. Sanitary Landfill (I hate to think of what an unsanitary landfill would be). A small blue sign with plantation's name on it. Missed it. Didn't turn around because there are lots of plantations in St. Francisville. Next small blue plantation sign. Gotta try it. Highway was 35 mph. The Judge told me never to speed in these small towns. Made turn onto small road to plantation. Speed limit 55 mph unless school lights blinking, then 45 mph. This is not a wealthy neighborhood. I guess the police are happy to have those students run over. Got to plantation. Not Andrew Jackson's, but some other guy's birthplace. Log cabin. Andrew Jackson was probably never even in this state. Doesn't matter because place closed.
Stopped for gas. Talk to Blaine who later brought his girlfriend over, but she wouldn't come within 25 feet of Woody. Looked up and saw why. Way cool purple car pulls up to next pump. I looked at the driver and said cool car. He opened the door. Except the door didn't open the normal way. It opened diagonally up, like some movie spy's. Blaine said he should put those on his truck because his hinges were a little rusted anyhow. I asked the purple car guy if I could take pictures. Sure, with a shrug and a slouch away to the convenience store in his huge, dark denim pants that hang halfway down your butt, except this guy, Bartrand, was a nice guy and had a t-shirt covering up all but the bottom part of the jeans seat. I asked Bartrand if I could take his picture. There were a bunch of old, some toothless or nearly so, black me at the scene. I said I like the car but I like him better. Everyone roared. As I pulled out, a woman walking to the convenience store called over her shoulder that Woody brings back a memory. I never, ever have women talking to me. I just had to know. Any specific memory? My aunt was taking us (some place) and the door opened and they told me just to hang on to it. Not the door to the car, I learned. The girl to the door.
Next small blue plantation sign. I stopped at the junction and looked at Dot's map. This one is 8 miles down the road. Decided to go anyhow as I may never see a plantation. Met Carol. Carol is one of the best storytellers I have ever met. She sounds a bit like Katherine Turner, and he mouth looks like my mother's. It was a good thing, because the bottom line is that this plantation was built 15 years ago. Yes, there was a plantation just like it there. Yes, there was a great story of whose daddy made his son drop out of LSU to oversee the renovation. Yes, there were civil war stories of abandonment, etc. And yes, the place had been struck by lighting and burned down. And mostly, there were stories about the films that were shot here. The crew of Louisiana, a French film, did the rooms perfectly. The crew of North and South were okay because they left the Louisiana decor intact. Then came The Big Valley, the theater version. They were turning the house into a Western set with pool tables and smoking and much more rich, according to Carol. And then last October, they just left. They left some furniture behind that isn't plantation furniture. The owner made them at least put the chandeliers up again. The wallpaper they hung is just coming off in ribbons. Carol said maybe we shouldn't go in that room. She would have to go up with us. Carol had us sit down for her story. It went on a good 25 minutes. Here are some of the things I heard:
I hightailed it to the next plantation because there wasn't much time left during operating hours. Found large brown sign for plantation. I wondered how the large brown signs were different than the small blue signs. Turns out that the large brown signs are owned by the Parks Department. Visited Rosedale. Our young guide has to sit down because she has been cooking all day on the plantation and had just had knee surgery. We were a big group. It is no longer off-season, and I will no longer get private tours.
Rosedale is amazing. Almost every little thing is still there. The last surviving daughter lived there until the 80s. She was in her 80s. They used outhouses and chamber pots until 1955. There are 13,000 (!) pages of original documents from the attic, including shopping lists, menus, etc. I asked what happened to the place during the war. The soldiers camped out in the fields, sort of an old MASH unit she said, and took things like books and rugs, things that they could carry and use. All of the family's good stuff was in an armoire upstairs. Legend has it that one of the daughters went up there, took off her clothes, and screamed bloody murder when an officer came in. No man ever went upstairs again. I'm not sure that's the whole story. If the ladies in Natchez were canoodling with the enemy so that their houses at least weren't burned down, I wonder what the ladies of Rosedale were doing to keep every single thing in their home untouched.
Also learned that potato chips were invented in Saratoga and were served only by the rich. Also that pretty daughter had over 100 suitors. They gave her lots of jewelry and she had to color code ribbons to men so that she could wear the right jewelry for the right guy. She was pressed to make a choice as she was not getting any younger. Married the boy next door.
Note to self: Only follow large brown signs, rent The North and The South and laugh at sets
Stopped for gas. Talk to Blaine who later brought his girlfriend over, but she wouldn't come within 25 feet of Woody. Looked up and saw why. Way cool purple car pulls up to next pump. I looked at the driver and said cool car. He opened the door. Except the door didn't open the normal way. It opened diagonally up, like some movie spy's. Blaine said he should put those on his truck because his hinges were a little rusted anyhow. I asked the purple car guy if I could take pictures. Sure, with a shrug and a slouch away to the convenience store in his huge, dark denim pants that hang halfway down your butt, except this guy, Bartrand, was a nice guy and had a t-shirt covering up all but the bottom part of the jeans seat. I asked Bartrand if I could take his picture. There were a bunch of old, some toothless or nearly so, black me at the scene. I said I like the car but I like him better. Everyone roared. As I pulled out, a woman walking to the convenience store called over her shoulder that Woody brings back a memory. I never, ever have women talking to me. I just had to know. Any specific memory? My aunt was taking us (some place) and the door opened and they told me just to hang on to it. Not the door to the car, I learned. The girl to the door.
Next small blue plantation sign. I stopped at the junction and looked at Dot's map. This one is 8 miles down the road. Decided to go anyhow as I may never see a plantation. Met Carol. Carol is one of the best storytellers I have ever met. She sounds a bit like Katherine Turner, and he mouth looks like my mother's. It was a good thing, because the bottom line is that this plantation was built 15 years ago. Yes, there was a plantation just like it there. Yes, there was a great story of whose daddy made his son drop out of LSU to oversee the renovation. Yes, there were civil war stories of abandonment, etc. And yes, the place had been struck by lighting and burned down. And mostly, there were stories about the films that were shot here. The crew of Louisiana, a French film, did the rooms perfectly. The crew of North and South were okay because they left the Louisiana decor intact. Then came The Big Valley, the theater version. They were turning the house into a Western set with pool tables and smoking and much more rich, according to Carol. And then last October, they just left. They left some furniture behind that isn't plantation furniture. The owner made them at least put the chandeliers up again. The wallpaper they hung is just coming off in ribbons. Carol said maybe we shouldn't go in that room. She would have to go up with us. Carol had us sit down for her story. It went on a good 25 minutes. Here are some of the things I heard:- He was the Donald Trump of his time
- If he had been in our time, he'd a been one of those kids you had to give a pill to
- Don't boss around and yell and scream at your slaves
- Boiling bark off of trees and calling it tea
- Land is land
- You're so smart when you're twenty-some years old
- He must have been some kind of handsome and some kind of slick to get that girl
- They lived all over it
- The slaves had children and you had little bitty slaves
I hightailed it to the next plantation because there wasn't much time left during operating hours. Found large brown sign for plantation. I wondered how the large brown signs were different than the small blue signs. Turns out that the large brown signs are owned by the Parks Department. Visited Rosedale. Our young guide has to sit down because she has been cooking all day on the plantation and had just had knee surgery. We were a big group. It is no longer off-season, and I will no longer get private tours.
Rosedale is amazing. Almost every little thing is still there. The last surviving daughter lived there until the 80s. She was in her 80s. They used outhouses and chamber pots until 1955. There are 13,000 (!) pages of original documents from the attic, including shopping lists, menus, etc. I asked what happened to the place during the war. The soldiers camped out in the fields, sort of an old MASH unit she said, and took things like books and rugs, things that they could carry and use. All of the family's good stuff was in an armoire upstairs. Legend has it that one of the daughters went up there, took off her clothes, and screamed bloody murder when an officer came in. No man ever went upstairs again. I'm not sure that's the whole story. If the ladies in Natchez were canoodling with the enemy so that their houses at least weren't burned down, I wonder what the ladies of Rosedale were doing to keep every single thing in their home untouched.Also learned that potato chips were invented in Saratoga and were served only by the rich. Also that pretty daughter had over 100 suitors. They gave her lots of jewelry and she had to color code ribbons to men so that she could wear the right jewelry for the right guy. She was pressed to make a choice as she was not getting any younger. Married the boy next door.
Note to self: Only follow large brown signs, rent The North and The South and laugh at sets
I woke up an hour later than usual (planned) to an expansive view of the Mississippi River through a window that did not have all those odd frame things in it. Since they do not have Smart Coffee at the Comfort Inn and Suites, I went to the Savory Starts place for free coffee and breakfast. Blast. Styrofoam cups again. Can't they just do the paper ones? Everybody I talk to hates styrofoam. Brilliant idea: use favorite go cup from car. Why didn't I think of this before? The Savory Start has a choice of coffee, including dark. Dark is good. I really only drink dark if I have a choice.
Packed and loaded up. Guy in overalls with green zippers comes up. I have a thing for those green zippered overalls, as Harold (Sewanee, Tennessee mechanic extraordinaire) wears them. Joe is the first guy who has ever gotten Woody's year right. Yup, Joe is the man. I asked him if he is from here (Vidalia). Nope, Oklahoma. You're a long way from home, I say. Lived here for 37 years. Joe had a '41 Ford coupe, faded red. His daddy found it for him in some field somewhere, and painted it blue for him. He looked at my dashboard. See, he said, on the gauges, these checks (he pointed to what I call tick marks) were yellow in the 40's. Red in the 41's. (I think I got that right). Woody's are champagne gold. Joe works for an oil company. He worked for Standard Oil forever, through lots of buying and selling and name changing. He has a good pension and got to keep his health insurance. He kept on working for another oil company supplier. I wish I had asked him exactly what he did. He is 73. Eureka! The money here isn't cotton and old, it is cotton and oil after all.
I told Joe that his wife must be happy to have him out of the house. They have been married 52 years. He thinks that's part of it. Joe lives right around the corner, next to the high school which used to have room about the size of the gym now. This was a two-lane road, really rural. The bridge was only built 10 years ago. Joe and his sister still have their mother's house in Oklahoma. They go there as often as they can. He also has her '88 Cutlass Brougham with the opera windows. Joe's wife knows the guy who built the Comfort Inn. And the medical clinic. And the Convention Center. And the hospital. They went to school together. He even built the real nice hair and massage place. The lady opened a restaurant there with seven types of food, for the seven continents or something like that. It didn't work. The spa did. [By the way, they have specials on Saturdays, and open at 9 a.m. Zelma at the visitors center gave me the brochure.] Most importantly to me, they will be putting a Holiday Inn Express right there. Definitely a return trip to Natchez/Vidalia, although it will be pretty tough to beat Monmouth. Maybe I'll alternate between them. Anyhow, Joe said he never would have thought this place would be anything. It used to be a mat field. What's a mat field? They bring in all these cement trucks, little ones, who put the cement in molds. Back and forth, back and forth. The mats have copper rods in them. All the mats are stuck together with the rods, and then a front-end loader rolls them on to barges. The barges go wherever the river is encroaching on something or the levee has fallen down. The mat field was very hard because all that cracked cement fell down and the cement trucks ran over it. They put a pile of topsoil over it when they built the Comfort Inn and Suites. Joe gave me his last name. It has many sylables, and the last part is land. I was later to find that a lot of people in Louisiana give their full name when asked. Anyplace else, they have always given just their first names. I liked talking to Joe, but I needed to get on the road to hit Mammy's Cupboard promptly at 11 a.m. when they opened. Back across the bridge to Mississippi.
I knew that Mammy's was just out of town, I think 16 miles. I drove for a pretty long time. Pulled over. I don't mind doing this, but it would drive my dad nuts. You'd go deaf hearing him complain about missing a turn. He probably wouldn't turn around. Anyhow, I pulled over and checked my iPad. It says just a few miles out of town. I must have been distracted by Panhandler's Treasures, a big rusty junkyard that happened to have a few really nice iron beds. I have been looking for one, but Woody is not big enough to take it home. Anyhow, how on earth could you miss a giant Aunt Jemima with a restaurant in her skirt? Decided to turn around. Checked mailbox numbers now that I know she is number 55. It is hard to check mailbox numbers going 50 miles an hour, but I did. I was in the 717 area, then going to 690. Right direction. Nearly missed her again, even though she was on my side this time. There was a bit of a paved spot just beyond her. I guess other people miss her too. Got in just on time. Here is Mammy's. I think they must have painted her skin this sort of Creole color, as the dark color could be offensive. There is an article framed inside that says Mammy's Is Stopping Progress. They have a bunch of mammy stuff in the little glass cabinet between the rooms. They all have very dark skin. The two rooms are very small, because how much can you really put in Mammy's skirt?
Billy McGee came over. I wondered how he related to the song. I looked it up. Bobby McGee. Oh. Billy McGee is a bit hard of hearing, but he had a red Ford convertible his senior year of high school. His sister got it after that. Billy is a regular. They brought him his regular meal. You can tell the locals at Mammy's because they don't eat chicken salad. Chicken salad sandwiches are Mammy's specialties. Homemade chicken salad, homemade bread. Billy sat at the table behind me and occasionally interjected questions and memories to my back. I had chicken salad without the bread. You mean chicken salad with crackers. I suppose so. I told her that I heard I need to order dessert when I sit down because you run out of it. Not at 11. Maybe at 1. I had a sweet tea and then realized my error. Tiffiany had told me to make sure I had the blueberry lemonade. The sweet tea had a straight straw, the lemonade a bendy one. I like bendy straws. The waitress came over to refill my tea. No! I'll have a blueberry lemonade. When it came time for a refill of that, I noticed that it was sweeter than the first go round. This is very good, because I've never had store bought that isn't exactly the same wherever and whenever you buy it. I'd need the refill because dessert is very rich, she said. 
The chicken salad is incredible. It's the kind you make for fancy, like for the races. It's all white meat with not too much mayonnaise (I'm not sure it even had any, but something was holding it together), with just the teensy tinsiest bit of slivered almonds. Mine came with ritz crackers and a cup of soup. I forgot how good ritz crackers are. My grandmother always loved them. They were more, well, ritzy than saltines. We usually had saltines unless my father wanted triscuits which we always had on the boat and they were always stale. The oyster crackers were always hard, too. 
Anyhow, I knew to order the hummingbird cake or the lemon ice box cake (I forgot what makes it ice box but I know it's good) or the banana carmel cake. Even though I love lemon desserts (and pineapple upside down cake), I had the banana carmel. They spell it carmel, too, the way it sounds. Caramel, damn spell checker, is not the only spelling. The cake was pie. This is also a good thing, because I love pie. The bananas were sliced the long way but still on the diagonal so that each slice was about three inches long. They weren't too green which taste icky, or too ripe which taste okay but look and feel icky. They were perfect. I wonder how they do that. My bananas are always to green or too ripe although I break the too ripe ones in half and put them in a Ziplock bag in the freezer for the smoothies that Oprah's diet guru prescribes. So. The carmel definitely wasn't from a jar, although I had kind of hoped it was so that I could make the pie at home. The crust wasn't crushed graham crackers but looked like it only lighter. Maybe Nilla wafers. There is whipped cream that is dense, not the airy kind from a can. Sublime, and not too rich for me, waitress. 
At the next table, there were four fat people, a kid and a guy with a video camera. It turns out that they are from channel 5 (an NBC affiliate by the kid's polo shirt). They do a Saturday food run segment. The kid is the reviewer. I'm not sure who the fat people are. He gave it a good review. The camera man asked if he could use me eating as background. He may. A guy in a lime green polo and that weird light hair and skin that are sort of pink grey (flesh-toned sort of like Spencer's of Speidie fame) came over. I'm not sure how on earth he steered the conversation that way, but he blurted out that he has people he never knew he had in Maryland (Woody is plated in Maryland). You know, This Hall and That River and This Famous Relative, etc., etc. I told him to read Michner's Chesapeake. His books are long, he said. I know he couldn't be that old money because his khakis had pleats in them. On my way out, I saw that he is eating with his very old, very proper mother. Sorry, you may not be my weird imaginary boyfriend. We have enough.
A few additions/clarifications to yesterday's post. Tester bed is really pronounced teester. I looked it up on the dictionary site that speaks the words. It is not European, though. It is from Middle English, derived from the Latin. So I guess the Latin is European, but it got bastardized by the English, those bastards. The English are no Europeans, I tell you. At Dunleith, I asked Annalow how many people they can fit in there for a wedding. They seat about 225 with all those terrible round tables, you know, the ones that the Presbyterians use, she whispered. Also, the children at Rosalie kept squirrels as pets in the basement.
Once again, it was a joy to be part of the Monmouth family. Christy, the girl who found me a hairdresser, gave the tour. I have been sleeping on a bed that is part of the tour. They even have a postcard of it in the gift shop. I bought one for $1.25. They put it in a nice white bag and put the gold Monmouth seal on the closing. I forgot to steal the pen from the room and it was definitely worth stealing. Hygenic, too, with a little cellophane envelope over it. Rashanda served me breakfast. It is the first time I've heard a non-slave name used in Mississippi. As I left, Hal nearly ran me over with his golf cart. And I was in Woody when it happened. There is definitely a reason for Hal's earplugs. I never got to ask him. Carol in reception was another doll. Gave me great directions to the hair place. When I was there, I found out that in Natchez, it is the beauty shop. Monmouth, by the way, was named by a guy from Monmouth, New Jersey. He was poor. When he moved to Natchez he became the postmaster. I'm not sure how you build a plantation on government pay, but there you have it. The last two of the family girls thought the house was old and uncool so they shut the doors one day and just walked away. It was vacant for forty years. They had to use things like giant braces headgear to straighten out the bricks. It was kind of like the rack, too. They make one or two turns of the things every night, pulling the bricks out of their sockets.The wall paper is the same Jackie O put in the white house. Monmouth had it first, obviously, as the mansion was built in 1810. I saw a quote at the Dunleith bar the other day: I want to live my life, not document it. That was said by same Jackie O. I'm in trouble now! I met Jim from California on the way out. He has gone from there to Natchez by motorcycle before. He said there are a lot of woodies in California and he should buy one. He has a '71 pickup. He is smart and looks like an older, tanner Jackie Chan with salt and pepper hair. Very sexy.
Went to beauty shop. Was an hour early. I have never changed my watch off Eastern Time because I am always late, and I don't want to be an hour late when I get back to my normal time. So I walked around town. Checked out the Eola Hotel. The lobby isn't really that great. Checked out Grand Hotel. Very glad I didn't stay there. Seven school buses and 2 gigantic tour buses in parking lot. Teenage girls from Jackson, Mississippi play chicken with you when you are going one way and they are three abreast going the other way. In spite of my detestation of mean girls, they won. Walked by Bowie's Tavern. This is the other beastly restaurant owned by the Dunleith people. There was a store attached (don't those ghastly people quit opening stuff?). It is called Bowie's Outfitters and has lots of fishing gear, as well as cartridges stacked by the window. Sign at door: No loaded firearms, please. There is also a bar with a shamrock in its name that advertises shots special, open at 2 p.m.
Once again, it was a joy to be part of the Monmouth family. Christy, the girl who found me a hairdresser, gave the tour. I have been sleeping on a bed that is part of the tour. They even have a postcard of it in the gift shop. I bought one for $1.25. They put it in a nice white bag and put the gold Monmouth seal on the closing. I forgot to steal the pen from the room and it was definitely worth stealing. Hygenic, too, with a little cellophane envelope over it. Rashanda served me breakfast. It is the first time I've heard a non-slave name used in Mississippi. As I left, Hal nearly ran me over with his golf cart. And I was in Woody when it happened. There is definitely a reason for Hal's earplugs. I never got to ask him. Carol in reception was another doll. Gave me great directions to the hair place. When I was there, I found out that in Natchez, it is the beauty shop. Monmouth, by the way, was named by a guy from Monmouth, New Jersey. He was poor. When he moved to Natchez he became the postmaster. I'm not sure how you build a plantation on government pay, but there you have it. The last two of the family girls thought the house was old and uncool so they shut the doors one day and just walked away. It was vacant for forty years. They had to use things like giant braces headgear to straighten out the bricks. It was kind of like the rack, too. They make one or two turns of the things every night, pulling the bricks out of their sockets.The wall paper is the same Jackie O put in the white house. Monmouth had it first, obviously, as the mansion was built in 1810. I saw a quote at the Dunleith bar the other day: I want to live my life, not document it. That was said by same Jackie O. I'm in trouble now! I met Jim from California on the way out. He has gone from there to Natchez by motorcycle before. He said there are a lot of woodies in California and he should buy one. He has a '71 pickup. He is smart and looks like an older, tanner Jackie Chan with salt and pepper hair. Very sexy.Went to beauty shop. Was an hour early. I have never changed my watch off Eastern Time because I am always late, and I don't want to be an hour late when I get back to my normal time. So I walked around town. Checked out the Eola Hotel. The lobby isn't really that great. Checked out Grand Hotel. Very glad I didn't stay there. Seven school buses and 2 gigantic tour buses in parking lot. Teenage girls from Jackson, Mississippi play chicken with you when you are going one way and they are three abreast going the other way. In spite of my detestation of mean girls, they won. Walked by Bowie's Tavern. This is the other beastly restaurant owned by the Dunleith people. There was a store attached (don't those ghastly people quit opening stuff?). It is called Bowie's Outfitters and has lots of fishing gear, as well as cartridges stacked by the window. Sign at door: No loaded firearms, please. There is also a bar with a shamrock in its name that advertises shots special, open at 2 p.m.
There are some very weird stores in downtown Natchez. The antiques stores have real crap next to priceless stuff. Here's some expensive stuff covered in dust that appears to be coming from termites in the ceiling.
Hold everything! This is a window full of rubber duckies! I have never seen such a thing. Susie (or Suzie, I don't know) has very, very long hair which is in transition. She is also wearing a "...when hell freezes over" shirt for The Saints. The lady who cut her bangs botched the job, and Susie (or Suzie) said her new hairdresser says the top looks like a toupee. She is letting it grow out. I asked her what her best seller is. Ducks. They're cheap, everybody can fit them in their suitcases, they don't break, and they get them for people they have to get something for but forgot to until the last day. She cannot keep enough in stock. These are Susie's (or is it Suzie's) beany babies. There are ducks for every occupation. I am particularly fond of the ones with teeth, for dentists. There is also a dead duck (grey). 70's ducks with peace signs on them. Birthday ducks. Extreme sports ducks. Chinese ducks. Ninja ducks. Turtle ducks (!?!). An entire duck nativity (sold only as a set). They are $1.35 each.
Susie (or Suzie) stocks some weird shit in her place. Toilet paper, tampons, used books, sodas, pralines, Japanese erasers. It's not a funky kind of weird. It's just weird. I asked her for directions. She told me to go to where the stop sign used to be. They may have taken it down when they smoothed out the bump. Teenagers would skateboard over it and four of them got hit by a car. Two were paralyzed, one from the waist down and one from the neck down. The neck down one was in the back seat. Both of them had full college scholarships for football. Natchez teenagers do the darndest stuff. They try to swim across the Mississippi (! says Susie (or Suzie)). Of course they don't make it. Now, Susie (or Suzie) used to get drunk with all her friends on the other side, but that was different. She fell asleep in her car, didn't pass out mind you, and bashed her forehead in. The steering wheel was bent like a U. The 8-track player (she must be my age) flew from the back seat clear into the windshield. She had just dropped her sister off at her boyfriend's. Well, you can imagine. We were chatting quite a bit, but I needed to get to my hair appointment. Luckily, Miss Patty from next door came to get a Coke. I bought a set of 12 old children's books, published in 1971 from the original 1930s version. The contents are very diverse. Susie (or Suzie) had put them in a box for me. She was a bit hesitant to do that because it was a Bud box and she didn't think I would be okay with that. It had those push in handle spots which was a good thing, as I got turned around and walked about 12 blocks with those heavy books.
Back at the beauty shop. Even though I had my formula written down, we had a bit of miscommunication and my hair is a weird shade of taupe. I think it will lighten, but I'm already thinking down the road to find someone to fix it. My curls are very loose, and I think Tiffiany did it this way on purpose because the humidity is so high that they fall out anyhow. I met Tiffeny at Opryland!, and now Tiffiany in Natchez. Neither one of them is spelled like the good jewelry, although Tiffany's has certainly gone downhill since they started making silver, especially those hearts with Return to Tiffany's on them. Tiffiany said she was mad at her mother because she could never get those key chains or mini-license plates at the gift shops and toy stores. Tiffiany can do no wrong in my eyes, though. Her favorite show is Toddlers & Tiaras! We dished about the icky looking lady with the drug-pushing husband disguised as a dentist. Not that she has anything against trailers, as she lived in one for a short time growing up, but those mothers in trailers spend over $20,000 a year on pageants. Tiffiany has never seen Dexter, and hates NCIS because it's scary. She can't be by herself if she happens to watch it.
In the color room, I met a young lady in her second year of pre-nursing. She is going to be a nurse anesthetist, a specialty I wholeheartedly encourage. It's great money and you set your own hours. Plus you don't have to empty bedpans or deal with Mrs. MacGillicutty in bed 3A when she needs her afternoon soap operas on and she can't reach the remote control and when she does she can't figure out how to work it. She has the most beautiful hair I have ever seen. Her mother said thank you. I did a double take. She has the looooongest legs. I asked her if I could ask her a personal question. Yes. How tall are you? 5'2". You mean 5'10"? No 5'2". That girl has to have the shortest torso in the country. She is so pretty it breaks your heart. No guy now. In Delta Gamma. Lives off campus so she can have fun. They have to share a room between four girls in the sorority and she is just not going to sleep in bunk beds any more. They still have candlelight ceremony where if a girl is lavaliered, pinned or engaged, she secretly asks the sorority president to have a circle. They pass a lighted candle around and you blow it out if it's you. Once around for lavaliered, twice around for pinned, and three times around for engaged. The tension mounts as it keeps on going around and around. Lavaliered means your boyfriend gives you his fraternity letters on a little necklace. Pinned is when he gives you his fraternity pin. My boyfriend bought one with lots of bling to give to me. They only get one, so you have to give it back if you break up. Engagement is, well, engagement. This entails a diamond ring. If it's his grandmother's you have a right to hate it, but you never tell his mother. When you're grown up and he's making a lot of money, he'll buy you the really big one you wanted in the first place.
At the shampoo bowl, the lady next to me was frantically asking for a travel-size hairspray of a particular brand. She borrowed her aunt's, used it up, and now her aunt is going nuts. They are not speaking. The women in question are well over 60. The hairdressers always use the ones that they keep in the car when they use up the full size ones at home and forget to get new ones. They only make travel-size ones at certain times of the year and they forgot to order more. I completely forgot to take Tiffiany's picture. And she was very pretty. There was not one hairdresser there with experimental hair. Very impressive.
At Longwood yesterday, I asked Gay whether I should go on the Natchez Trace because I completely missed it for the last 500 miles. She said to just go up about 15 miles where there is a historic inn, then come back. It all looks the same from there on up. The Natchez Trace goes from someplace in eastern Tennessee to, where else?, Natchez. It is a National Park. I saw a roadside information exhibit on the origin of the Trace. Apparently, stuff was floated down the Mississippi and then the boatmen would walk clear back up the river to float more stuff down. This is the road. I also read some informative stuff about loess which is the big silt/soil layer that is nearly 20 feet deep in parts of Mississippi! This is why it is easy to grow cotton. I had asked Tiffiany if all Natchez money comes from cotton. That, she said, and oil. Huh? I then passed Emerald Mound which is a Native American sacred place. You may not play ball or fly kites there. Finally, I got to the inn. I forgot the name of it, but it apparently is the first stop on the walk back from Natchez. It seemed to be about 25 miles from town. There were 50 inns, but this is the only one left. As I passed the station, the ranger caught me an force-fed me a brochure. I asked about Emerald Mound, and he gave me one of those too. I think they are evaluated by how many brochures they give out. I asked him if I could take a picture. He quick had to change his official baseball cap to his official Smokey the Bear hat. He could get in big trouble if he didn't wear that hat in photos. Ranger Eric Chamberlain even had to confiscate some guy's something. I went up the hill to the inn. There was a volunteer in a Brownie Scout vest who could answer my questions. She did the whole spiel. I was very attentive. Linda isn't from here. She is from an hour and a half north of here. You come all the way down here to volunteer? Well, my husband has retired from the park service. We wanted to see if we like it here. We bought an RV because we were going to see the country. We thought why not start here. WE can park our RV over there, and they pay our water and electricity, fill up our butane, and we can use the washer and dryer. The campground next to the park charges $425 a month. In three weeks they are going to Decatur, Alabama. I asked if I should see the slave graveyard. There isn't anything there.
As recommended, I went to the family graveyard. There was practically nothing there either. Everyone buried there is from the family except one. He was a guest in 1825 and died on the spot. It was very nice of them to bury him. I was walking on the Old Field Path. I don't see very well, so it looked like Oil Field Path. Aha! Nathezians (whatever) have old money, not oil money. From another information sign I learned that the inn built quarters for the "growing labor force," i.e., slaves. I also learned that riving is making shakes (for roofs, not to drink). By the way, the guest quarters were called Sleepy Hollow. I thought that was in New York with the headless horseman and all. I wonder if Monmouth and Sleepy Hollow in Mississippi were named after the New Jersey and New York places or vice versa. On the way out, saw Ranger Eric's ATV in park ranger green. It looks like a Kawasaki motorcycle, seat, chrome exhaust and all, with four big wheels. Gotta get your jollies somehow I guess. Saw my first Spanish moss and first mosquito of the trip. Also first daffodil. This is Woody in the woods.
Changed my pants at the loess sign. Hoped no one would come by. Two cars did, fortunately after I was dressed. Silver sports car stopped behind me. Followed me when I left. This was the opposite direction than the one he was going before. Let my breath out when he passed me. Also saw same red SUV parked on the side of the road that was there when I was going the other way. There are only two reasons men park by the side of the road. One is peeing. This was the Nature Area. He must have been hunting.
By this time, I was very hungry, having not eaten breakfast since Monmouth this morning. Apparently a two egg breakfast (with grits, bacon, sausage and biscuits) is a full southern breakfast. Monmouth also had grape jelly. Must be a regional thing. I had gotten a good BBQ recommendation for Tiffiany for a place on a street I couldn't pronounce. I couldn't pronounce it because I never could understand her. It is below the bridge. I could not find the bridge. I could see it because it is quite large. I went at it from a bunch of different ways and just could not get there. Literally a half tank of gas. Never did find it although I did learn that the street name was Sargent Prentiss. I ate at the Pig Out Inn, quite obviously for tourists due to its proximity to the visitors center and Big Mama's Tamales. The cue was pretty good, though. Sides did not include turnip greens or green beans or even mac n cheese. Baked beans, yes. Potato salad, yes. Cole slaw, yes. Pasta salad? Definitely a tourist place. This is Carl. He chops the pork extraordinarily quickly. Ten years and he still hasn't cut off a finger. This is Courtney. She says they do a lot of business, especially from the Convention Center. Friday night is usually take out.
Went over the bridge (found it this time as I asked Courtney for directions). Did not look for BBQ place because I would be sorry I ate ate Pig Out Inn. Came to Louisiana. Went to visitors center where I met Zelma. Helpful from Z to A, as she put it. These guys are always happy to see me because I actually want information. Zelma gave me a lot. I now know that the River Road on the Louisiana side has lots of plantations, too. And these aren't in the city. Take that, Natchez. I have a much better plan for tomorrow. I will go toward Baton Rouge, and maybe a bit further. Then I can make the Metarie Library on Sunday for the king cake extravaganza. Perhaps go to New Orleans. Checked all the hotels and B&Bs in NO. Most have bad reviews, are ridiculously expensive, or are clean out of town. The latter is looking better and better. Like New Iberia, maybe. There are shotgun shacks you can stay in further toward Cajun country. I am a shack kind of girl, so this may be just the ticket. Meanwhile, I must get to Mammy's Cupboard at exactly 11 a.m. This is on the Mississippi side, but it's okay because the river road goes back and forth and at that point I'm in the right direction anyhow. Mammy's is in the skirt part of Aunt Jemima. They are only open 11-2, and you have to order your dessert the minute you sit down or they will be out. The banana carmel cake is great, says Tiffiany and pretty-haired nursing student. So is the hummingbird cake. Is that shaped like a very small bird or is it food for the very small bird or (horrors) is it made from hummingbirds? No. It's like a spice cake. I think I'll have both. I heard from someone else that they are famous for their chicken salad. I'll have that too. I didn't have dinner, as I had already eaten the rest of the Tennessee Toffee for dinner in Vicksburg. But wait! I have 19 boxes of girl scout cookies in the car. Had half a box (okay the whole box) of peanut butter patties with my Diet Dr. Pepper at 10:30 pm.
Got gas. Cannot find real gas. Woody hates ethanol. Note to self: look up realgas.com that someone told me about. Across the road, a store was Buying Pecans. Also Selling Pecans.
At the recommendation of Zelma, and of Gay from yesterday, I decided to stay in the Comfort Inn and Suites in Vidalia, Louisiana. This is not the same as Vidalia, George where they grow the onions. I must ask for the walk-in rate, they told me about over in the visitors center. I have been looking a hotel brochures. You can get a much better rate the same day, not like airlines where you pay more if you decide to go someplace in a hurry. My wandering is paying off. I said Hi to the next girl in line. She said Hey. I forgot. Down here, they don't say Hi. They say Hey, pronounced hay-ay.
I never stay at Comfort Inns. This one has a patio and looks across the river to Natchez. You can't hardly see the river from Natchez itself. Catherine said they didn't use the term walk-in rate but she gave me a discount. I have a river view room and a sofa (as well as the normal bedroom stuff). This place has a giant chandelier (!) in the foyer. I told the girls at reception that this must be one of the best Comfort Inns ever. They smiled and said wait and turned on the chandelier. I needed a Coke. Finally found machine at end of hallway behind the pool (!), gym (!) and business center (!). It is discretely hidden next to the washing machines (!). The machine itself is really cool. You put your money in, press the button, and a horizontal tray goes under your choice. It then lowers it to the exit hole. Your soda (or pop, as they say here, I think) hasn't been shaken! Open with impunity. Gotta love a region that has Diet Dr. Pepper in the pop machines. Walked back to elevator past business center. Locals (non-guests) using the Internet. One guy playing computer games. Back upstairs, I saw a very, very long flotilla of barges. I wonder whether the guys driving the tugs have to walk back upstream. I can also see Natchez under the hill which I did not see from Natchez. There used to be pirates and stuff down there.
Between the visitors center and the Comfort Inn and Suites is the convention center. A white letter on black felt board listed rooms and their events. 112 Surprise Birthday for (I don't remember). Not much of a surprise anymore. But check this out! Two gigantic red tractor with balloons on them are in front of the convention center. Must be a farm machinery convention. I am psyched. You know how much I love farm equipment. Almost as much as scissors, and that's saying a lot. As I took lots of pictures, a guy with a Case polo shirt (also red and white with tasteful black accents) came up and said that they had the biggest one ever built over on the other side of the levee. It's the 535, I think. I was compelled to find the 535. Ta-da. One mother fucker of a tractor.
Susie (or Suzie) stocks some weird shit in her place. Toilet paper, tampons, used books, sodas, pralines, Japanese erasers. It's not a funky kind of weird. It's just weird. I asked her for directions. She told me to go to where the stop sign used to be. They may have taken it down when they smoothed out the bump. Teenagers would skateboard over it and four of them got hit by a car. Two were paralyzed, one from the waist down and one from the neck down. The neck down one was in the back seat. Both of them had full college scholarships for football. Natchez teenagers do the darndest stuff. They try to swim across the Mississippi (! says Susie (or Suzie)). Of course they don't make it. Now, Susie (or Suzie) used to get drunk with all her friends on the other side, but that was different. She fell asleep in her car, didn't pass out mind you, and bashed her forehead in. The steering wheel was bent like a U. The 8-track player (she must be my age) flew from the back seat clear into the windshield. She had just dropped her sister off at her boyfriend's. Well, you can imagine. We were chatting quite a bit, but I needed to get to my hair appointment. Luckily, Miss Patty from next door came to get a Coke. I bought a set of 12 old children's books, published in 1971 from the original 1930s version. The contents are very diverse. Susie (or Suzie) had put them in a box for me. She was a bit hesitant to do that because it was a Bud box and she didn't think I would be okay with that. It had those push in handle spots which was a good thing, as I got turned around and walked about 12 blocks with those heavy books.Back at the beauty shop. Even though I had my formula written down, we had a bit of miscommunication and my hair is a weird shade of taupe. I think it will lighten, but I'm already thinking down the road to find someone to fix it. My curls are very loose, and I think Tiffiany did it this way on purpose because the humidity is so high that they fall out anyhow. I met Tiffeny at Opryland!, and now Tiffiany in Natchez. Neither one of them is spelled like the good jewelry, although Tiffany's has certainly gone downhill since they started making silver, especially those hearts with Return to Tiffany's on them. Tiffiany said she was mad at her mother because she could never get those key chains or mini-license plates at the gift shops and toy stores. Tiffiany can do no wrong in my eyes, though. Her favorite show is Toddlers & Tiaras! We dished about the icky looking lady with the drug-pushing husband disguised as a dentist. Not that she has anything against trailers, as she lived in one for a short time growing up, but those mothers in trailers spend over $20,000 a year on pageants. Tiffiany has never seen Dexter, and hates NCIS because it's scary. She can't be by herself if she happens to watch it.
In the color room, I met a young lady in her second year of pre-nursing. She is going to be a nurse anesthetist, a specialty I wholeheartedly encourage. It's great money and you set your own hours. Plus you don't have to empty bedpans or deal with Mrs. MacGillicutty in bed 3A when she needs her afternoon soap operas on and she can't reach the remote control and when she does she can't figure out how to work it. She has the most beautiful hair I have ever seen. Her mother said thank you. I did a double take. She has the looooongest legs. I asked her if I could ask her a personal question. Yes. How tall are you? 5'2". You mean 5'10"? No 5'2". That girl has to have the shortest torso in the country. She is so pretty it breaks your heart. No guy now. In Delta Gamma. Lives off campus so she can have fun. They have to share a room between four girls in the sorority and she is just not going to sleep in bunk beds any more. They still have candlelight ceremony where if a girl is lavaliered, pinned or engaged, she secretly asks the sorority president to have a circle. They pass a lighted candle around and you blow it out if it's you. Once around for lavaliered, twice around for pinned, and three times around for engaged. The tension mounts as it keeps on going around and around. Lavaliered means your boyfriend gives you his fraternity letters on a little necklace. Pinned is when he gives you his fraternity pin. My boyfriend bought one with lots of bling to give to me. They only get one, so you have to give it back if you break up. Engagement is, well, engagement. This entails a diamond ring. If it's his grandmother's you have a right to hate it, but you never tell his mother. When you're grown up and he's making a lot of money, he'll buy you the really big one you wanted in the first place.
At the shampoo bowl, the lady next to me was frantically asking for a travel-size hairspray of a particular brand. She borrowed her aunt's, used it up, and now her aunt is going nuts. They are not speaking. The women in question are well over 60. The hairdressers always use the ones that they keep in the car when they use up the full size ones at home and forget to get new ones. They only make travel-size ones at certain times of the year and they forgot to order more. I completely forgot to take Tiffiany's picture. And she was very pretty. There was not one hairdresser there with experimental hair. Very impressive.
At Longwood yesterday, I asked Gay whether I should go on the Natchez Trace because I completely missed it for the last 500 miles. She said to just go up about 15 miles where there is a historic inn, then come back. It all looks the same from there on up. The Natchez Trace goes from someplace in eastern Tennessee to, where else?, Natchez. It is a National Park. I saw a roadside information exhibit on the origin of the Trace. Apparently, stuff was floated down the Mississippi and then the boatmen would walk clear back up the river to float more stuff down. This is the road. I also read some informative stuff about loess which is the big silt/soil layer that is nearly 20 feet deep in parts of Mississippi! This is why it is easy to grow cotton. I had asked Tiffiany if all Natchez money comes from cotton. That, she said, and oil. Huh? I then passed Emerald Mound which is a Native American sacred place. You may not play ball or fly kites there. Finally, I got to the inn. I forgot the name of it, but it apparently is the first stop on the walk back from Natchez. It seemed to be about 25 miles from town. There were 50 inns, but this is the only one left. As I passed the station, the ranger caught me an force-fed me a brochure. I asked about Emerald Mound, and he gave me one of those too. I think they are evaluated by how many brochures they give out. I asked him if I could take a picture. He quick had to change his official baseball cap to his official Smokey the Bear hat. He could get in big trouble if he didn't wear that hat in photos. Ranger Eric Chamberlain even had to confiscate some guy's something. I went up the hill to the inn. There was a volunteer in a Brownie Scout vest who could answer my questions. She did the whole spiel. I was very attentive. Linda isn't from here. She is from an hour and a half north of here. You come all the way down here to volunteer? Well, my husband has retired from the park service. We wanted to see if we like it here. We bought an RV because we were going to see the country. We thought why not start here. WE can park our RV over there, and they pay our water and electricity, fill up our butane, and we can use the washer and dryer. The campground next to the park charges $425 a month. In three weeks they are going to Decatur, Alabama. I asked if I should see the slave graveyard. There isn't anything there.
As recommended, I went to the family graveyard. There was practically nothing there either. Everyone buried there is from the family except one. He was a guest in 1825 and died on the spot. It was very nice of them to bury him. I was walking on the Old Field Path. I don't see very well, so it looked like Oil Field Path. Aha! Nathezians (whatever) have old money, not oil money. From another information sign I learned that the inn built quarters for the "growing labor force," i.e., slaves. I also learned that riving is making shakes (for roofs, not to drink). By the way, the guest quarters were called Sleepy Hollow. I thought that was in New York with the headless horseman and all. I wonder if Monmouth and Sleepy Hollow in Mississippi were named after the New Jersey and New York places or vice versa. On the way out, saw Ranger Eric's ATV in park ranger green. It looks like a Kawasaki motorcycle, seat, chrome exhaust and all, with four big wheels. Gotta get your jollies somehow I guess. Saw my first Spanish moss and first mosquito of the trip. Also first daffodil. This is Woody in the woods.
Changed my pants at the loess sign. Hoped no one would come by. Two cars did, fortunately after I was dressed. Silver sports car stopped behind me. Followed me when I left. This was the opposite direction than the one he was going before. Let my breath out when he passed me. Also saw same red SUV parked on the side of the road that was there when I was going the other way. There are only two reasons men park by the side of the road. One is peeing. This was the Nature Area. He must have been hunting.
By this time, I was very hungry, having not eaten breakfast since Monmouth this morning. Apparently a two egg breakfast (with grits, bacon, sausage and biscuits) is a full southern breakfast. Monmouth also had grape jelly. Must be a regional thing. I had gotten a good BBQ recommendation for Tiffiany for a place on a street I couldn't pronounce. I couldn't pronounce it because I never could understand her. It is below the bridge. I could not find the bridge. I could see it because it is quite large. I went at it from a bunch of different ways and just could not get there. Literally a half tank of gas. Never did find it although I did learn that the street name was Sargent Prentiss. I ate at the Pig Out Inn, quite obviously for tourists due to its proximity to the visitors center and Big Mama's Tamales. The cue was pretty good, though. Sides did not include turnip greens or green beans or even mac n cheese. Baked beans, yes. Potato salad, yes. Cole slaw, yes. Pasta salad? Definitely a tourist place. This is Carl. He chops the pork extraordinarily quickly. Ten years and he still hasn't cut off a finger. This is Courtney. She says they do a lot of business, especially from the Convention Center. Friday night is usually take out.
Went over the bridge (found it this time as I asked Courtney for directions). Did not look for BBQ place because I would be sorry I ate ate Pig Out Inn. Came to Louisiana. Went to visitors center where I met Zelma. Helpful from Z to A, as she put it. These guys are always happy to see me because I actually want information. Zelma gave me a lot. I now know that the River Road on the Louisiana side has lots of plantations, too. And these aren't in the city. Take that, Natchez. I have a much better plan for tomorrow. I will go toward Baton Rouge, and maybe a bit further. Then I can make the Metarie Library on Sunday for the king cake extravaganza. Perhaps go to New Orleans. Checked all the hotels and B&Bs in NO. Most have bad reviews, are ridiculously expensive, or are clean out of town. The latter is looking better and better. Like New Iberia, maybe. There are shotgun shacks you can stay in further toward Cajun country. I am a shack kind of girl, so this may be just the ticket. Meanwhile, I must get to Mammy's Cupboard at exactly 11 a.m. This is on the Mississippi side, but it's okay because the river road goes back and forth and at that point I'm in the right direction anyhow. Mammy's is in the skirt part of Aunt Jemima. They are only open 11-2, and you have to order your dessert the minute you sit down or they will be out. The banana carmel cake is great, says Tiffiany and pretty-haired nursing student. So is the hummingbird cake. Is that shaped like a very small bird or is it food for the very small bird or (horrors) is it made from hummingbirds? No. It's like a spice cake. I think I'll have both. I heard from someone else that they are famous for their chicken salad. I'll have that too. I didn't have dinner, as I had already eaten the rest of the Tennessee Toffee for dinner in Vicksburg. But wait! I have 19 boxes of girl scout cookies in the car. Had half a box (okay the whole box) of peanut butter patties with my Diet Dr. Pepper at 10:30 pm.
Got gas. Cannot find real gas. Woody hates ethanol. Note to self: look up realgas.com that someone told me about. Across the road, a store was Buying Pecans. Also Selling Pecans.At the recommendation of Zelma, and of Gay from yesterday, I decided to stay in the Comfort Inn and Suites in Vidalia, Louisiana. This is not the same as Vidalia, George where they grow the onions. I must ask for the walk-in rate, they told me about over in the visitors center. I have been looking a hotel brochures. You can get a much better rate the same day, not like airlines where you pay more if you decide to go someplace in a hurry. My wandering is paying off. I said Hi to the next girl in line. She said Hey. I forgot. Down here, they don't say Hi. They say Hey, pronounced hay-ay.
I never stay at Comfort Inns. This one has a patio and looks across the river to Natchez. You can't hardly see the river from Natchez itself. Catherine said they didn't use the term walk-in rate but she gave me a discount. I have a river view room and a sofa (as well as the normal bedroom stuff). This place has a giant chandelier (!) in the foyer. I told the girls at reception that this must be one of the best Comfort Inns ever. They smiled and said wait and turned on the chandelier. I needed a Coke. Finally found machine at end of hallway behind the pool (!), gym (!) and business center (!). It is discretely hidden next to the washing machines (!). The machine itself is really cool. You put your money in, press the button, and a horizontal tray goes under your choice. It then lowers it to the exit hole. Your soda (or pop, as they say here, I think) hasn't been shaken! Open with impunity. Gotta love a region that has Diet Dr. Pepper in the pop machines. Walked back to elevator past business center. Locals (non-guests) using the Internet. One guy playing computer games. Back upstairs, I saw a very, very long flotilla of barges. I wonder whether the guys driving the tugs have to walk back upstream. I can also see Natchez under the hill which I did not see from Natchez. There used to be pirates and stuff down there.
Between the visitors center and the Comfort Inn and Suites is the convention center. A white letter on black felt board listed rooms and their events. 112 Surprise Birthday for (I don't remember). Not much of a surprise anymore. But check this out! Two gigantic red tractor with balloons on them are in front of the convention center. Must be a farm machinery convention. I am psyched. You know how much I love farm equipment. Almost as much as scissors, and that's saying a lot. As I took lots of pictures, a guy with a Case polo shirt (also red and white with tasteful black accents) came up and said that they had the biggest one ever built over on the other side of the levee. It's the 535, I think. I was compelled to find the 535. Ta-da. One mother fucker of a tractor.
The horror of the plantation Dunleith continues this morning. Woke up to three guys moving wicker chairs in front of my window (the one facing the Exit sign and the Coke machine). Remember, my window is floor to ceiling and covered only with sheers. These are my bathroom curtains. Nice except they are made from my dining room tablecloth, you know, the one that you buy when you're in port during your Carribean cruise. I nearly couldn't use the Water Pik (and you know how I am about hygeine, oral especially) because there were no outlets it the bathroom. Good thing I carry my own power strip at all times. Went to breakfast (we don't have it today so you get a two egg breakfast). I had the two egg breakfast with no eggs. I may never want to eat another egg again. My bacon was passible, the grits better than the Duff Green Mansion (whose disappointing grits were touted to be the best in Mississippi), and the biscuits (2) okay. They had grape and apple jelly. Is this Denny's? For the first time this trip, I had a food stain right above my breasts due to slippery jelly. When my mother died, we split up her clothes. All her shirts had food stains just above the breasts. It must be genetic. No longer my fault: running out of gas and dropping food on myself.
Came back from breakfast. Guys sanding "gallery" in front of window with giant floor sander. I learned that gallery is what you call the big balcony on a plantation. When I got to Woody, I noticed a bit of, um, vegetation that I stirred up last night in the almost-down-the-ravine issue. Here's a ravine at Dunleith (but not that one). I wish it would swallow the plantation whole.
Waited to take the 10 a.m. tour of my hotel (for which other people pay $12). Was one minute late. Literally one minute, sixty seconds, 1/60 of an hour. The guide had locked the door in front of me. I waved through the sidelights. She opened the door with visible distaste. I told her I was only one minute late. Well, these people were here early. Okay. The other two were from Texas, Wayne and Jerry. I don't know which one is Wayne and which one is Jerry, although they appeared to be husband and wife. The guide's name is Annalow. It is a mashup of her grandmothers' names. She hates it. When she worked in an office she replaced a girl named Anne. Her boss kept calling her Anne and she didn't respond. Finally he threw a paper clip at her. I guess she kind of likes her name after all, although she rolls her eyes vexedly when she speaks of it. Annalow looks like she has a wig on, but the more I look at her the more I think that she has just been perfectly coiffed. Probably one of those women who has a standing appointment every week with Mr. Jerry and sleeps with a hairnet on. She definitely had at least a bridge, and probably dentures, as she whistles when she talks. They're very big on geneology here. At least two thirds of the tour was how this one married into that family, and this one had eleven kids, and most frequently, this one hated her husband and ran away. Ok, she didn't say hated, she said didn't care for very much. But that's okay because she wasn't quite so attractive. I am persona non grata because I am a Yankee.
Here's what I know about Dunleith. It survived the war because the women entertained the Union soldiers. Apparently, Natchez survived because all the women entertained Union soldiers. Not like Vicksburg where they actually fought for their homes and lost. Those cagey Natchez girls. Ladies in Natchez have either cobalt blue or maroon/magenta edges on their china. It was very popular. There is a ghost that plays the harp there, at tea time. She was very unhappy. By the way, house servants were not slaves. If you worked for no pay in the fields you were a slave. If you worked for no pay in the house you were a sla...house servant. The ladies of the house were large-nosed and jowly. I can't believe they even painted their portraits that way as there is always a bit of artistic license taken in these things. The wallpaper is very valuable and was touched up using stamps (the paint kind, not the postage kind). Annalow likes Jerry's (or Wayne's) hair. It was in a very foofy french twist. The couple is very tall. Houses are really big if they have four bedrooms. Also, girls could be courted until the lamp went out. Their fathers put only a little oil in it. The angel lights were also used as night lights for the children. Above the chicken coop (where the check in desk is), there is a pigeonnaire. I always thought these were for racing pigeons. My hairdresser races pigeons. Turns out, they hope the pigeons will roost there so that they don't crap over everything else.
Went to the Visitors Center. This is the largest Visitors Center I have ever seen. There were at least half a dozen tour buses in the corner of the parking lot. This is the first time this trip that I've run into tour buses. I had to get them to put the $2 movie on becuase I was the only one there. I asked Sarah Jones what to do in Natchez. She asked if I wanted to tour the plantations. Yes, I did. She helped me figure out which ones to go to when because they all have different hours and it was already noon. Turns out that all the "plantations" aren't plantations at all. The places where they grew cotton is across the river. These are fake plantations in town through which these rich guys competed with each other when they weren't busy smoking cigars and overseeing cotton (which consisted of counting money). I wanted to see a working plantation and the Eli Whitney stuff. She told me I wouldn't be able to get into one of those. Except Frogmore. Sounded good to me. It is over the line in Louisiana, but I am heading that way anyhow. She gave me the brochure. I later read it and it is not open until July. Not her fault. You couldn't really expect a vistors center person to know this when nobody had ever asked about it before. I also told her I was interested in African American history. She told me where I could see the outsides of some buildings that were related to blacks. That's how they are identified here (she is one, so she is the authority as far as I'm concerned). I've always wondered which is the right terminology.
Map and schedule in hand, I headed out toward Rosalie. It is about 100 feet from the visitors center but I didn't know that. Since I'm never on time anyway, I decided to eat lunch before the tour. I have been curious about tamales. I thought tamales are something you eat in like New Mexico or Arizona. So I stopped at Big Mama's Tamales even though it is kind of the Disneyfied version. I missed the good ones getting to Natchez last night. Tamales are corn meal with a tiny bit of some kind of unidentified meat in the middle wrapped up in corn leaves. I love grits. I love cornbread. I even love polenta. I hate tamales. They are like thick wallpaper paste. No wonder they have quart sized tabasco sauce on the tables. I guess it has to be a hot tamale in order to be at all palatable. Their cups are real plastic, so they are a nice souvenier if you don't throw them away. A truck in the parking lot has nuts.
So off to Rosalie. As I am late again, I ring the bell. The tour guide is nice. She is Pam. I later found out that she lives in the old slave quarters. The house is owned and maintained by the DAR. Their muk a muks have their hoop-skirted dresses on display there. I asked if there were a lot of members of the DAR. Oh, yes. I'm trying to figure out why the Daughters of the American Revolution were in Mississippi at all as, if I'm not mistaken, Mississippi was not part of the country during the American Revolution. Or maybe it was. I don't know. I learned that wall to wall carpet was the cat's meow. It was a lot of rugs stitched together. The ladies of the family had a tough time with fertility. Two orphan sisters were adopted by different parts of the family and were raised as cousins. Finally, one of them had a lot of kids, most of which died from various ailments, although one boy fell down the stairs and cracked his head open. The two girls who were left lived at Rosalie until they died. They had already given it to the DAR which thoughtfully added a bathroom to their bedroom. From what I can tell the two of them shared the room. From the fairly recent portrait I can tell that at least one of them was rather pretty. She had a crush on some guy that married some other girl. When she was sixty, he came back and married her. He died 5 years later, and then she lived with her sister again. I wonder what happened to her sister when she was married. Did all three of them share a bedroom? Geriatric menage-a-trois?
Pam showed us a fly catcher which is a kind of glass sphere with a pushed up bottom where you put sugar water. The flies can't get out and die. They were normally frosted glass at the bottom so you didn't get grossed out while you were eating. Lot's of commode references. The ladies seat was softer than the gentlemen's. Roy and Barb from Wisconsin have been stalking me. They said they've seen me in every place they'd been for the last four days. Ulysses S. Grant lived in Rosalie and let the ladies live upstairs. The view is why. The ladies buried the gold mirrors in cloth and hay and so on and then unburied them after the war. The lady of the house did a lot of shopping in New York.
Hightailed it to Stanton Hall which I couldn't find. A big white pickup truck pulled alongside of me. Nice car. You lost? Uh, yes. Follow me. I did. And I got to Stanton Hall. I was running late again and hoping that they wouldn't lock the door on me again, so I told John and Michelle to look at the car all they want while I went inside. Aren't you gonna lock it? No (I didn't tell them I can't because I lost the keys). Nah, people respect the car. They do. Rushed up to the door. Locked in front of me again. I rang the bell several times. I asked for the tour. The very annoyed garden club lady said that she is giving the tour. I jumped in to join in. She was surprised. She wanted to keep the door locked in front of me.
She said the carpet in the hall was stripped carpet. I guess that's like wall to wall except the rugs are stitched together in strips. Turns out they weren't even sewn. They were stuck to the floor with nails. There are a lot of gasoliers (chandeliers lit with gas), the best ones of which were from Philadelphia. She was annoyed that good stuff could come from the same place I do. I asked her how it worked. You take the coal and do blah, blah, blah with it and.... No, I mean how do the gasoliers get gas into them? She looked at me like I was even crazier for asking that than I was in asking how gas is manufactured. Someone else in the group told me. The garden club bought the house in 1938, structurally sound but not a lot more. Lots of those garden club girls must have money, because each piece of priceless antiques (she was sure that we understood they were priceless) was donated by this one or that one. Scalamandre (pppbblt Gayle, I know who they are. I didn't have the heart to tell her I own some of it myself) did the red drapes and upholstery for the parlor sets. The chairs are veneered rosewood. This is true in a lot of plantations. Also, they all use cypress because it doesn't rot or get bugs. All the walls in these places are plastered with a molasses, flour and horsehair mixture. She made a point that these were clipped manes and tails, but I don't buy it. You ever see a live horse with a buzz cut? At the Duff Green Mansion, Chad said it was like bakin' a cake and then adding horsehair to keep the goop together until it dried. Stanton hall has very, very big windows, and a backwards system to ceiling height. First floor is 16 feet. Second is 18, and third is 20. Did the builders have the architect's plans upside down?I didn't take a picture of Gayle because she was so mean. She kept on saying we did this and we did that. Let me do the calculations. 1938. Say she was 15. That means she was born in 1923. That makes her about 90 years old. Either she is the youngest-looking 90 year old I have ever seen, or she was using the royal we liberally. Give it up Gayle, I'm not buying it. The bedrooms are quite lovely. The sugar shakers are in the yellow one because they were in the dining room and no one was looking at them. The donor must be an officer of the garden club. The beds are teesters and half teesters. I was going to say something about why don't you call them testers and half testers like the rest of the world does, but someone beat me to the punch. You know, it's European. Yeah? As far as I remember, tister and half tister are not Fench words. I'll have to look it up. The garden club has a restaurant at Stanton Hall. It also has a swimming pool with a sign directing non-members to not even think about it. I'm not sure what happens here. Do the garden club ladies have lunch and go for a dip in between giving tours? I really don't want to see her in a bathing suit. After I asked a few more questions, she started talking to everyone else, not meeting my eye at all. Egads. I've been shunned by a tour guide. No more hoop skirts for me. By the way, Stanton Hall is "Natchez' Premier Attraction," according to them, and it's restaurant is the World Famous Carriage House. Oh, that Pinky. She's always so enthusiastic.
Rushed out to Longwood. This is the one the lady at the visitors center said is the most interesting one. I couldn't find the ticket from the strip of three I'd purchased in advance at the visitors center. I said I'd buy another one to the guy at the gate. You better not go there, they'll send you right on back. I asked him again. Can I buy a ticket? Can I buy a ticket from you? Oh, sure. This turned out to be a really cool place. It is octagonal. It was designed by the same guy as did the mansion I lived in in Philadelphia for a time. The plans were made for his portfolio to show how ingenious he was. He never expected anyone to ever build it. Longwood is octagonal. It was to be 25,000 feet and would outdo all they guys at the diner. Guy lost everything in the War Between The States. Died of lungs or hear or something combined with depression. It seems that everyone in the South between 1850 and 1900 died of something and depression. Pretty depressing place. Anyhow, his young widow lived with her four kids in the basement and had to raise cows or something. The house was never finished.
Oh, workmen came from Philadelphia for the construction but left during the war. A lot of tools and stuff is still there. So are the crates used to deliver the piano and the harp. All these plantations have the crate that the harp was delivered in. Despite being the basement, the living area was very nice. In the original plan the center part was for a billiards table, and two of the rooms for smoking and playing cards. An antebellum man cave. The front of the outside and the windows were used in True Blood for the King of whatever Vampires. Here is the clip from the True Blood website.
Both Gay (my guide) and I like True Blood even though the whole vampire/teenager thing is annoying. Gay says it's the immortality thing, that teenagers think they're never going to die. Plus the sex. The best, best, best part of Longwood were the guides. Gay (yes, my neices would call me gay and snicker, but my mother named me when it was light and fun) knew of a place I might like to stay. Shantybellum. Be still my heart. It turns out that this guy, Tommy Polk who is apparently a musician in Nashville, started the Shack Up Inn. I love this guy. Louis pulled up the website for me. Called in parking lot. Couldn't get in touch with him.Pondered staying at the Eola Hotel in town, but understand that the lobby is great and the rooms suck. I really wanted a place with a river view as I had been traveling down the Mississippi for a week and I still haven't seen it. Pondered staying at the Grand Hotel near the visitors center. Looks very nice, and appears to be over the river. Website made me wary. I don't know why. Was looking at another B&B that appeared really nice. Thought I'd try that, but this morning when I pulled out of Dunleith, I realized it was right across the street. No more blinding light for me, although I have since heard from several people that it is very nice. Now you tell me. Finally decided to give plantation B&Bs one more chance. Monmouth is a plantation you can only tour once a day, at 10 a.m. Sounds like it must be pretty nice. Looked it up in Fodors. Star (that means it's "Fodor's Choice", I usually don't go to those because everyone goes there and it is very crowded). Also $$$-$$$$. What the fuck. Brokered a deal with nice front desk lady as I take a full bed, and most people want a queen at least. $165 a night. Rack rate: $325.
This place is heaven. There is nice soft music (which is also on their website and sounds like the track from Gone With The Wind) and a pretty courtyard with iron tables, and porches with wicker rocking chairs. There is also Hal, who wears ear plugs. I don't know why. I'll ask him in the morning. Hal is the bomb. He'll carry your bags, but will let me take my own as I prefer to dig around in Woody for ten minutes or so when a get in a place and it's still light out. If it's nighttime, I grab what I think is a clean shirt and collapse. Hal showed me all the tricks of the place, like how and when it's better to use the side door. I went to my room and the place is a freaking four diamond hotel. The soap is in little pleated tissue paper wrappers that you don't have to use your scissors on. There is a full teester bed. Fancy drapes. Poofy white towels. And they turn your bed down at night. Even better, I got the nice desk lady to give me a list of hair salons (when did they stop calling them beauty parlors?) that might have Aveda color so I can get my tell-tale roots taken care of. The first one said no, baby doll, try this one. I did, and I got a lot of yes ma'ams and an appointment for tomorrow. I decided to stay another night. No dice. I guess it must be a weekend. I don't keep track of the days anymore. Maybe Shantybellum guy will call back. I'm not ready to hit Louisiana. Going to New Orleans seems like the end of the road. It's not. I have lots of the gulf coast to cover, but I won't have that great rural run anymore. Maybe I'll just turn around and go back to Clarkesdale and my luv shack. I wanted to go to that unclaimed baggage place, and it's in northern Alabama, so maybe a loop is in order. Oh, and the couple that liked the yellow bedroom at Stanton Hall is from the gulf coast, but 20 miles inland so they didn't get it so bad.
Shirley came to see me and Woody. Shirley made me take her picture three times before she was ok with one of them. I love Shirley. I love Hal and Shirley. I love Monmouth. Turns out that Shirley will be my waittress tonight but I didn't know it at the time. I'm having dinner at the plantation. It was really pretty good, although they didn't slice the duck in the kitchen and I had to hack at it with a steak knife, not particularly successfully. But first a bath. The tub is the kind a like best. It is on the smaller side, but deep, deep, deep. The cold water faucet turned off when you asked it to. I decided to put makeup on. And a skirt. What is the world coming to? I then met Roosevelt. He is the bartender in the study. He's been here for 24 years. They treat him well. He is very short. I love Hal and Shirley and Roosevelt. I love Monmouth.
On the porch waiting for dinner, I sat in a white wicker rocker with a Tanquery and tonic (lime please, I don't know how anyone can drink it without, I tried it once when I was desperate for a drink and I didn't have any limes, and it really sucked) and my needlepoint. I haven't done any sewing in a long time, and I think I am doing it now to get a little privacy. The lady with the red hair and cream pantsuit asked me if I was getting any mosquitos with my bare legs and ankles. Oops. All the ladies were wearing pants suits. And she's from Louisiana and I'm a Yankee. Later, her husband asked about my sewing. She was pissed. At dinner, there were two couples, a table of four and me. Shirley asked the fourtop if they wanted it all on one ticket. They do. I told her I wanted mine on one ticket too. The conversation from all of them was a bore. Tempted to drink heavily. Did not. I told Shirley it would not be pretty if she had to haul me upstairs. Oh! They have these amaaaaaazing things called fried rolls. They don't seem fried to me. They are light as air. Like a Dixie Donut with no sugar. Later, Isis tells me you buy them in packages and just fry them. They are called castelettes (I think, I'm going to look it up). Isis is really Tracey. I went to dinner without my glasses on. The name of the restaurant is 1818. The menus were at the hostess station, and the lettering was such that it looked like ISIS to me. Thus, Isis. Yes, I want dessert. My pants still fit.Just got and email from the Road Food people. There is a Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SoFAB) in New Orleans! They currently have a pecan candy exhibit. Pralines, ho! Check this one out: Tout de Sweet, All About Sugar. My kind of museum. There is also an online Southern Food Magazine called Okra. I love it already. There is a king cake festival day after tomorrow in the East Bank Regional Library, Metarie! Maybe there is a reason to keep going after all. Poppy Tooker will be Mistress of Ceremonies. It sounds like I should know who she is. I'll look it up.
I'm going to bed feeling very safe:
Lost:
- Nothing!
Found:
- Great bathtub
- Hal, Shirley and Roosevelt
- Hair color appointment
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)