All the big houses

Breakfast downstairs was from a side-board buffet of ham, grits, biscuits and fruit.  It was good food and there was plenty of it.  

Monmouth has a some original “out-back” buildings, including a couple of slave quarters and what we thought might be a summer kitchen.

Monmouth was where we leaned that these great houses normally had both a Ladies Parlor and a Gentleman’s Parlor, because Ladies shouldn’t be around the Gentlemen who were smoking cigars and talking politics.  Probably the Ladies didn’t want to, anyway.  The Ladies' parlors were full of pretty colors, flower arrangements and musical instruments.  The Gentlemen's parlors were more somber but somehow more luxurious, testifying to who was paying for all this.  The Gentlemen's parlor at Monmouth was not as dark as my photo looks, but the lighting did not allow for better photography.

Afterwards we toured “Stanton Hall”, which is palatial and lovely, but our guide was new and not very coherent.  Stanton Hall is really luxurious.  The house is huge and the grounds cover a full town block.  

The house boasts a large front hall, which most houses don't have, and all the rooms were richly furnished.  But no photography allowed inside.

We heard about how the great mirrors, which were up to 10 feet tall, would be covered when there was a death in the family.  This was so the person’s spirit wouldn’t get caught in the mirror.  In one of the houses a mirror has a couple of smeared patches on it that almost look like hand-prints; the story is that someone forgot to cover the mirror after a death, so these are the handprints of the deceased, trapped inside the mirror forever.  Doesn’t say much about the smarts of the deceased . . . 

Somewhere along the line, in one of the tours, we learned that during this period they often painted porch ceilings a light blue color.  The story was that wasps would think that blue color was the sky and not try to build nests there.  We decided that when we finish the porch at home, we’ll paint it blue; our area has a lot of wasps, and it's is worth a try! 

We admired the grass that many houses used as trim; it grows to about 6 inches tall, fills an area well, and does not need to be trimmed.  We asked around until someone told us it was called Monkey Grass.  We are going to try to grow this at home, in the space between the sidewalk and the road, where nothing wants to grow.

The last house in the area we wanted to see was Longwood.  It's out of town a little ways so we drove out to it.  It's a beautiful shell of a very original house.  

The octagon-sided house is completely finished on the outside, but only marginally finished on the inside.  The Civil War interrupted construction - some tools are supposedly still sitting in the dust where workmen put them down when they left to join the army - and the owner ran out of money.  It’s still amazing building.

They did get the dining room done to a usable state.  It is not very ornate but it wasn't meant to be the final version; this was a case of "It will do until the real dining room is finished".  Over the long dining room table hangs a large piece of carved, polished wood, with an attached rope that runs across the ceiling and down a wall.  This was their ceiling fan.  Someone (probably a slave) would gently pull the rope like a bell-rope, which would make the wood panel move back and forth, hopefully stirring up a slight breeze during dinner.

By then we'd seen most of what we could fit in on this trip so we got back in the car and drove to New Orleans, where we checked into the Best Western Patio.  This is the first hotel I’ve been at that has a safe in the room.  It didn’t make me feel safe - just the opposite.

We went to the French Quarter and walked around to see the sights.  Then we walked to Jackson Square, where we decided not to take the cooking class we had been considering, because it turned out to be just a demonstration.  We went back to Bourbon street as it was getting dark.  Bourbon is full of strip joints and noise, so we left there and went back to Jackson Square area, where we had beignets and cafe a lait at Cafe du Monde.  This is a great tradition in town.

Melrose and Monmouth

Breakfast was a quick snack on leftover lunchmeat before we drove to downtown Natchez.  One of the first antebellum houses we looked at was "Melrose", a gorgeous Greek Revival home.

From the back, Melrose looks the front of an entirely different house.

While we were admiring it, we met Kevin and Becky, who are also restoring a house, and we had an interesting conversation with them about the challenges of old houses.  Their house is on the Natchez Trace, and their restoration includes transforming it into a hotel, so they have a few challenges we don't.  But I think our house needs more work!  Later we took a trolly ride around town, and a carriage ride.  We also took a tour of the house “Rosalie”.   Photos were not allowed inside so soon I won't be able to remember what it looks like, but I do recall it's beautiful ceiling-to-floor red drapes, and the children's room with child-sized furniture.  I think this was the house that had a big harp in one of the parlors.

Afterwards we went through two Victorian houses that had been converted into craft and book shops.  Later in the day we checked into “Monmouth”, where we would be spending the night.  

This is a beautiful place, but we didn't do too much exploring right away.  The house owner was sponsoring a benefit for her brother in Barnes Hospital.  The tickets were $10 for a picnic dinner and entertainment.  We decided that was as good as any other plan, so we bought a couple of tickets and joined the group behind the house.  There was a gospel group singing under the arbor, and dinner was fried chicken, salads, etc.  We met Kevin and Becky again there and visited with them through the evening.  Becky looked so cool and comfortable while I was sweltering; when I asked her about it, she told me the secret was to wear linen.  I don't have any linen clothes, but if I lived here, I would!

Our room upstairs was pretty and comfortable, but not overly ornate.  Our room’s thermostat was in another guest’s room and the air conditioning was off for awhile; we were OK but if we had been staying another night, we probably would have moved to another room.

Ironclad Cairo

Drove from Memphis to Vicksburg, where we took a 16 mile driving tour through the Civil War National Park.  The remains of the ironclad ship “Cairo” are on exhibit there.  The ship sank in 1862 and wasn't re-discovered until 1958.  Although the ship was iron-clad, most of it was made of wood and it didn't hold up well to being raised. On display are the reassembled pieces; it was very interesting but it didn't look like keeping it outside was the best way to preserve it.

Nearby is a museum of artifacts recovered from the ship.  

The rest of the Park is wide, green fields that are full of memorials, old artillery and both Union and Confederate skirmish lines. We spent a lot of time there, walking from memorial to memorial.  Most of them are dedicated to the troops from a particular state, such as Mississippi or Illinois.  The park is very well cared for and the weather was nice for walking around.  There is a feeling of quiet respectfulness there and whole time we were in the park we talked somewhat quietly.  Loud noises seemed to be out of place here; but this place heard enough loud noises in 1863 to last it forever.

When we left there we drove on to Natchez and checked in at Howard Johnson’s for one night.  We had dinner at Cock-of-the-Walk, where they have good food, reasonable prices, and waiters who can flip a plate of cornbread 10 feet in the air and catch it on the serving skillet.

Peabody ducks and Mud Island

In the morning we drove to downtown Memphis.  We walked into the Peabody hotel for a look around, but it was too early for the famous ducks to be out.  So we walked down to Beale street for a while, then went back to the Peabody. All this to watch ducks get off the elevator!  But now we can say that we did it.  Afterwards we got on the trolly to ride around the city a little.  We ended up at Mud Island and walked along the river layout, which is a small-scale model of the river and some of it’s tributaries.  

The Island also has the Memphis Belle, a WWII Boeing B-17, on display.  

The Island's restaurant was preparing to open to the public the next day, and we were asked to help “train” the staff by ordering a free lunch, up to $20.  Always glad to help!  

After lunch we walked back from the island to the mainland and did a little shopping, including buying some hot peanuts to snack on.  We went through  Schwab’s, whose famous motto is “If you can’t find it at Schwab’s, you probably don’t need it."  And it did seem like they had a little of everything there.

We headed back to the hotel to drop our purchases off, then drove out to Beall's outlet for more shopping.

Memphis Ribs

We left Alton, Illinois, around 3:30 pm and drove as towards Memphis.  Along the way we stopped at the Outlet mall in Sikeston and bought a few things in the Kitchen Outlet store.  When we got to Memphis we had dinner at Corky’s - wet BBQ ribs for Randy, and BBQ sliced pork for me - and it was all very, very good.