East of the Big river

We are at the visitor welcome center in Natchez, Mississippi (map).

The visitor center, immediately east of the Mississippi river bridge from Vidalia, Louisiana, has a large bus and RV parking area, where overnight stops are permitted. Even though both my online resource and our Days End guide indicated that it would be "impossible" to get level here, Odyssey's air suspension handled the task with ease, and we had a comfortable night. There is a riverboat casino just upriver from this spot, but, uncharacteristically, they do not permit RV parking.

From here it was an easy mile walk downtown, where we had dinner at Breaud's (the food was good, but the prices were not commensurate with the atmosphere), and enjoyed strolling past antebellum homes and historical points of interest. This morning, we will take the little trolley from the visitor center around the town, which will swing us past the historic steamboat landing and waterfront known as "Natchez Under the Hill."

There is a good bit of fall color here, and Louise took this photo of pistache trees right here in the parking lot:



We also had some fall color of our own; apparently I drove through some wet lane striping yesterday. We saw the striping crew pulled over on the right shoulder with flashing lights, and I did what I always do for emergency or maintenance vehicles so close to the traffic lane: I moved left, partially crossing into the (empty) oncoming lane. I was abreast of them before I could see that it was the striper. Of course, they hadn't set any cones or signs out:



This afternoon should find us on the Natchez Trace Parkway, leaving the mighty Mississippi behind.