Natchez, Mississippi State 10 USA (6/4/11)

After leaving the last Plantation we kept heading North, as it was now after lunch so we decided to start looking for where we were going to spend the night. We crossed the State line into State number 10, being Mississippi. Yay!! We had already seen quite a bit of the old Mississippi River as it runs through so many states, but now we were actually in the State of Mississippi. So yes, a State line sign photo. (don't actually know what was going on in this photo with me sticking my chest out, or with my wild travel hair???)

We came across a gorgeous little place called Natchez which is situated on the mighty river itself, and what do you know, we found a gorgeous Plantation Mansion in town called "Dunleith" which was just lovely, and what do you know...they had a nice room available on the top floor, at the front of the house overlooking the front lawn opening onto the huge balcony.

Sounds just like me. Look at that bed!! Looks like me :) Ooh and what...$110?? Oh ok...no problem.

I feel like a queen....velvet curtains....omg! I love this. Wait till you see the balcony....

Look at this...I don't want to leave!

Can I buy this??? Can you see me on the verandah?

Robert, get me some wine, some chocolate. I'm not moving....except I think I need longer legs...

Heaven...

So relaxing after a few hours in the car...

  It has some cool history behind it too. The original home actually got struck by lightning, well the chimney did, and the whole home burnt down. Only the outside stairs remain at the side of the house. (Photo above) Then the new house was built and sold, and renamed. You can read about the history and the families here.

Ok, Robert is bored, we should go look around Natchez and get a real feed.....

 Look...the Mississippi. A bit blurry, but it's massive.

It is so wide, and runs so fast. its so loud.

Across the road, we found a cute little pub serving dinner. Natchez reminded us of Cairns, sitting across from the river, the weather was similar. It felt quite coastal. It was nice there. (Not quite as nice as our balcony) We bought some choccies and took them back to our balcony for dessert....they looked better than they tasted :(

 An older couple insisted on taking our photo when they saw us taking selfies :) We were struggling trying to get the river in as well as our heads. lol

Dunleith have a Castle behind it which has a nice restaurant in it too, which is where we had breakfast before heading further North to Memphis.

And today is our Kelli's birthday......Happy Birthday Miss Kelli xxx

Houmas House, Darrow, Louisiana (6/4/11)

Ok, so we now have the bug. The Mansion bug. The South is littered with Plantations, that are open for tourists to stay at, to tour through, to gush over, and we were hooked. But, we had just stayed at the biggest and the best in Louisiana, and it was going to take alot to beat it.

Not far away in Darrow was Houmas House. No where near as big, no intention of staying, we didn't know where we were staying tonight. Maybe a bit further up North, who knows. Hopefully another Mansion though :)

But we thought we'd check this one out anyway.

The lawns and grounds were gorgeous. That's one thing I loved, the big lawns and the massive 100 year old trees, the big verandahs. Beautiful.

Look at those trees, can't you just imagine sitting under them stitching, sipping on tea....or a wine??

A bit of history into Houmas House....

Spot me in the tree trunk??

It was all downhill from there....inside it was all clutter. We could touch everything, which was weird. At Nottoway, we couldn't touch anything, it was all too old. Our tour guide here was the lady in the purple shirt at the piano, she was lovely. But then she began to sing. Sing loudly....

Very loudly and louder....and said we could sit on the furniture, touch whatever we wanted....unlike other Plantation Mansions in the area...oops, little bit of tension there??? She was quite boistrous, but very friendly. I was a bit frightened of her...

The tour was ok, but I was keen to leave. It wasn't Nottoway. It was quite gawdy I thought. Not my cup of tea at all. Everything was jam packed in and just mis-matched.

Back in the car and looking for another one...they are everywhere...but I think Robby is over it.

I think the dogs in Dior wedding dresses did it......not sure though???

Nottoway Plantation, White Castle, Louisiana USA (5/4/11)

One of my absolute favourite places was this. We stumbled across this mansion, like so many places in America, just stumbled across them. We were driving along and saw a sign for the Nottoway Mansion. Well, I'm a sucker for a nice house, and I just had to take a look. Well, we ended up staying the night. We were both in love with the place, and next time we go to America, we will definitely stay in the Mansion for more than a night. There are alot of photos but you will be amazed. It is actually owned now by a Sydney man and has so much history. It's well worth a visit. I could live in it. I love it.

Nottoway Plantation is in White Castle Louisiana which is kind of in between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Now, originally we were heading straight to New Orleans, but as the tornado warnings were pretty high in New Orleans we were told to stick close by here or to head North, so we avoided New Orleans for now, and didn't end up getting there.
You can actually read all about its history here. It's quite interesting to read about the family and the history of the home. I wish I had bought the book now. Roberts sister has been there apparently. We didn't know that at the time.

The mansion itself has been restored to its original glory and you can stay in it. It was actually completed in 1859 and has 64 rooms in the main mansion. They also have cottages on the property which are gorgeous, that is where we stayed. The rooms are ultra modern and roomy. They have their own kitchens, and are quite grand. We had a little balcony with rocking chairs, gorgeous gardens and all.

The restaurant in the Mansion was one of the best meals we had in all of America. The service was lovely, the food was to die for, the wine was lovely. I could honestly just stay there for a month. This is where I first ate grits. I did have grits elsewhere, but they were not nice anywhere else but here.

Check this out....what a front door and verandah?? Can you even see me?? Did you know why these mansions had two sets of stairs, one on either side of the house? One side was for the men, and one for the daughters of the house, as young men were not allowed to see the ankles of the daughters of the house before they were married, so the fathers of the house had two sets of stairs built....

If you stand on the balcony, and stand looking toward where I took the photo from, the Mississippi River runs right along there across the front of the house. Its magical & loud.

Nottoway was owned by the Randolf Family who are buried on the property. We actually met a lovely couple in the Randolf Cemetry and chatted for quite a while. They were as fascinated by life in Australia as we were by life in America and how different things are.

This was taken from the Cemetry. the lights you can see are the restaurant. back when the Randolfs owned the home, the restaurant was a bowling alley for the children.

The following photo's are courtesy of The Nottoway website as we weren't allowed to take photo's with a flash inside the restored home, as the flash slowly deteriorates the fabrics and artworks that are originals.
So, I borrowed them from http://www.nottoway.com/

This is Mrs Randolfs Parlour

 sitting room....

The dining room.....

The music room.....

The sitting/reading room...

This room was absolutley amazing. The White Ballroom. Everything was white &/or gold. The floor, the walls, the furniture. It was glorious. If you want a better look, go to the website. Its amazing. I wanted to stay in there, but as its a tour, you only get a certain amount of time in there. Its glorious.

They hold heaps of weddings in here, and I can see why. It's mezmerizing. The pictures just don't show it like it is in real life. I just wanted to stay there. It's magical and romantic. The floor is so shiny, glossy. I just love it.

Cannot wait to go back here!!

Louisiana State 9 USA (4/4/11)

Heading out of Texas, we crossed the State line into our 9th US State and into the lovely Louisiana. 

Oh how I have wanted to get here! Here is our famous State line photo. Now before this photo, you drive over a five mile bridge from Texas. But if you remember, when we arrived in Texas, we flew into Texas, so we missed getting a photo of the "Texas" sign. So when we got to the other side of the five mile long bridge, I made Robert drive back to get a photo of the "Texas" photo. Of course this meant we had to drive, 5miles back to get the "Texas" sign photo, then another five miles back past this sign again....he was happy. Not. But hey, I had to get the photo.

Now, all Robby wanted to do while down in Louisiana...(say it with the Southern twang) was go on a "Swamp People" tour. Great. I was going to get eaten by gators. I managed to survive the horrific plane ride over the Grand Canyon, now I was gonna get eaten by gators. Gee....what next???

After, we were driving through back roads of some town to get to a tour, of streets that looked liked scenes from the movie Deliverance. I swore I wasn't ever going to make it out alive. We actually took a wrong turn, realised we were actually driving on the wrong side of the road for the USA, (which could have been a real disaster if we had met another car on the road) and missed our air boat tour. Oh what a shame....we missed it. ;-)
Then a man comes along, a good samaritan, offering a tour for $50 as he sees that we have just missed our boat. Me being paranoid, thinking he is going to kidnap us and tie us up and feed us to the gators instead...declines. Robert, jumps up with the $50 and pays. I freak. Robert is as excited as a kid in a lolly shop. I am sweating like a pig in you know what.

Then I realise we are not the only dopey people on the tour....there are about 7 other people going on the boat...phew. We are not gator food today...hopefully.

I am right up the front, on the edge of the air boat. Just like on the tv show, Swamp People. Yes, these people talk just like the tv show. We went were the tv show goes. It was cool. But scary. All that went thru my mind was, "Will I live through this??" Now as I was right up the front and on the edge, the boat had no sides. I said to the guide, "so these gators, don't jump up on the boat like crocs in Australia??"
"Oh no, they're docile" he said.....I had my doubts. They jump up on docks and land....why not boats to eat Aussies???

The scenery was beautiful and peaceful...our boat just flew over those green bits. It was scary.

 This is the five mile bridge we drove over...see how long it is. We drove over it three times :)))

See the gator? He was close to our boat, it was scary, but she just sat there. Apparently in the same area each day. Used to tourists apparently. yeah right. Then she would just disappear under the water....

Here is another one....

This one was bigger and we got the boat quite close to this one and he kept going under the water and popping up again somewhere else. freaky. I kept my feet up and moved closer to Robert.

He was keeping his eyes on us...and I on him. I wasn't so happy to be sitting on the edge of the boat at this point.

 Glad to be off the boat and back on dry land....Robert wanted to go again!