We were up early (for us) and on the road by 9 am. It was another driving day, so not a lot of sightseeing. We even only found one geocache.

Natchez is in the lower SW corner of Mississippi, right on the Mississippi River across from Louisiana. Southhaven is on the Mississippi/Tennessee border in a northeastern line from Natchez – a distance of 298 miles (479 km). We pulled into the hotel at 4:15.

We really liked Natchez. The setting along the river was lovely and they have spectacular sunsets every night. There was not a ton of traffic on the roads so John found it quite easy to get around. Since it is an old city, built long before automobiles that required two lanes, plus parkng spots, there were one-way streets everywhere that were mostly clearly marked. It would have been nice to be able to see some of the mansions, even from the outside, but since they were all ‘estates’ there are long driveways through forested land to get to the house and the ticket booth is at the gate. We did not need to pay $30-$40 to go take a photo of the outside of a big house.

Not far out of Natchez is Emerald Mound, another Native American ceremonial and sacred site. There are quite a few of them in the SE US. Emerald Mound covers 8 acres. There are others that are over 125-150 acres.

Highway 61 is a divided two-lane highway that goes all the way from Natchez to Southaven and most of the time it was as empty as this.

As we drove north we entered the Mississippi delta farmlands. So we were back to flat land, but this time with crops – we identified rice and soybean. Also a coarse-looking corn-type plant – perhaps just a forage corn.

A fun thing we saw for several miles were crop dusting airplanes. They fly like birds, swooping over the fields, banking quickly at the end of a run after they drop their spray, then circling back for another run. Great flying to watch.

Tomorrow we go to Graceland – a most expensive place to visit, but as a product of the 50s and 60s I am going to go! Photos are allowed inside and out so there should be a bunch of pics in tomorrows blog.

We have plans to visit a Thoroughbred stable in Kentucky – Claiborne farms where Triple-crown winner Secretariat was born and raised and raced from – and if we manage our trip as we hope I also plan to visit Gettysburg. But those are the only ‘tourist’ things we have on the agenda. Most of the balance of our time until we get to Kill Devil Hill on the Outer Banks of North Carolina on June 19, in time for the June 21 wedding we have been invited to, will be spent driving into as my different states as we can wiggle and finding at least one geocache. If I discover some interesting places or historic sights to see along the way that will fit in with the number of days we have left we will go see them. As of now on our tentative agenda we have 2 free days that we can use to adjust distances or routes. If we are able to go where we hope in the time we have we will be visiting 17 different states on this journey. So far we have: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and, as of tomorrow, Tennessee. That makes 7. 10 more to go. Hopefully.