Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Natchez Mississippi

Goodbye Texas! Hello Louisiana! Route 82 across the Sabine Pass and we saw the Gulf of Mexico for the last time. Louisiana gave us a warm welcome- the temps have been in the high 70’s for 4 days now. Our 1st night out of Texas was back to Lake Charles at the Sam Houston State Park. Harry likes that $8 per night! Spring is in Louisiana – pink azaleas are in bloom, trees are turning green and the delicate little blue, purple and yellow wildflowers in the forest are starting to blossom. And there are forests that are over 10 foot tall - - - oaks, pines and Cyprus! In Texas, the tallest trees were the palms and then the rest were 10-foot tall mesquite. The state park was full of ROBINS and they were all singing at the same time! We have to travel slowly now so they can keep up with us. Saturday we ventured as far as Chicot State Park just north of Ville Platte via one of Harry’s “shortcuts”. - which took us cross-country past crawfish farms and rice paddies. Chicot State Park is a deep forest that surrounds a bright green algae covered lake, checker boarded with Spanish moss draped Cyprus trees and supposedly infested with bass. We rode our bikes up and down winding 9 miles of roads and still have not covered it all. Sunday we explored Ville Platte (which means flat village) and we put 11 more miles on our bikes. We’re moving on to Natchez on Monday.

Well, so much for Louisiana - - Natchez by noon on Monday. We found the Natchez State Park about 18 miles east of town and got a good spot to park, just up from the lake. Not going to go exploring Natchez today as we have thunderstorm warnings, tornado watches and tornado warnings for the whole southwest Mississippi area as we sit in the trailer waiting for all the bad stuff to pass. The TV stations are showing most of the heavy stuff going around us again with high winds, trees down and roads closed. There were a few reports of tornados touching down. The temps this morning were in the 70’s and it is to get down in the 30’s tonight. The temps for Tuesday are only to make it to 50 degrees. We’ll need to dress a bit warmer when we return to Natchez! We won’t be seeing any more temps in the 70’s for a while. Maybe we’ll find some wifi in town!!