Last week Keith hinted around that we would be going somewhere for our anniversary. He also said, "Don't ask me any questions about this weekend because you always ruin the nice stuff I try to do for you." Thanks for that, babe.
So Friday morning I took the kids to Meridian to meet my mom and went to get my hair done and he texted me: "Come home and pack an overnight bag". The ladies at the salon were all a-twitter.
So I came home and packed my little bag and waited on Keith to get there. I asked him when he would tell me where we were going and he said, "You'll figure it out".
At first I couldn't figure it out, because after 10 years of living here I still have no idea where cities are in relation to Jackson... but in reality I can get lost I my hometown :)
So after a bit we ended up on the Natchez Trace and I think at that point I started squealing.
I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Natchez. After heading into Natchez we pull up at a beautiful antebellum mansion named Dunleith. The original house that was on this property was given to a girl aged FIFTEEN who had three children and was a widow. Madddness I tell you. Anyway, her family gave the original house to her and her new hubs and it burned down like three years later. So, they built Dunleith. Although Dunleith was built on 40 acres it wasn't a plantation house. More like a town mansion- all the houses in Natchez were. Most of the owners had plantations over in Louisiana.
That night we ate at The Castle, the carriage house turned restaurant.
The food was fabulous and almost too pretty to eat. Our waiter was a
trip, everything we thought we wanted he had a better plan and he was
too enthusiastic to resist. We ended up enjoying it all. This carriage house was older than Dunleith, and belonged to another mansion. It (the mansion) must've burned down at some point, because there wasn't another house anywhere except across the street. From what we heard, it's amazing that any of the houses survived fire. This shot was actually prettier than what my camera captured. I'm sure you can tell :)
The next morning we woke up and took a tour of Dunleith. I honestly didn't think a second about it, but a lot of the houses in Natchez are supposedly haunted. I think that would've freaked me out a bit if I'd given it any thought before we checked in to the hotel. This is where we slept. Our room was in the attic of all places. Never thought for a second we could be sleeping with ghosts. Thankfully, we weren't!!
This courtyard was original to the house. And, you can kind of see the 250 year old magnolia in the background. Oldest one in Natchez!
The next day we ended up just wandering around Natchez. I believe there must be some sort of city ordinance that states no buildings can be torn down whatsoever. The shack and the mansion must stay together. Outbuildings, slave quarters, lean-to sheds, all there... and not necessarily being kept up either. There was not a single new building in downtown. Not that I minded that AT ALL. I love to look back at the past. I love history. Not Civil War or political or even dates and facts. What I'm interested is people. Who they were, where they lived, what the did. I think it's as my favorite history teacher from high school would call Gossip About Dead People. That's the kind of history I like.
We ended up driving through Natchez Cemetery, not because we planned on it but that was the kind of day we had. Just ending up wherever we ended up at. No serious plan, I just loved taking it all in and seeing everything there was to see. We enjoyed reading the headstones, a lot of them were neato. It was also very pretty as far as a cemetery goes. Old headstones mixed in with new ones. Huge statues, small crosses, un-named soldiers from the Civil War, just interesting.
I'm really glad my name's not Lillicrap. How about you?
After we left the cemetary we ended up walking a bit downtown and went into the oldest Presbyterian church in Natchez. Old church. Anyway, there was photographer that lived in Natchez and took pictures from about 1850's on and then passed the torch onto his son. Both were very talented. A man who lived in Natchez bought the negatives from the photographer's son's widow (you following me?). There were like 75,000 negatives. 50,000 were unusable; 20,000 went to LSU (as the photographer lived out his last days in LA and the buyer was an LSU alum); and the rest went to this little church. Not only were there family portraits, kids, bridal portraits and advertisements, but also snaps of just everyday Natchez life. It was fascinating. My favorites were of Dunleith and the family that lived there. They seemed like a fun bunch. There was lots of commentary to go with the photos that connected them all together. Something I didn't know was that before the Civil War Natchez, MS had the highest income per capita of the entire US.
After grabbing some lunch and wandering downtown a bit, we decided to head home. Instead of taking the Trace back home, we decided to go through Port Gibson so Keith could show me the Windsor Ruins. There's another plantation home nearby called Cane Mount that Keith stayed at once (of course he was hunting!!) and it was pretty, but vacant. I'd love to buy it. But then I'd have to live in the middle of NoWhere. And also the state owns it now, and i'm not sure they'll sell it to me. It was beautiful regardless.
These are the Windsor ruins. Pictures can't do justice to how magnificent they were. It must have been an incredible house, the likes of which would've probably dwarfed almost all of the homes in Natchez. The story goes that they were having a party and someone dropped a cigarette and the house caught fire. There's only one remaining drawing of the house, and it was done by a Union soldier who sketched it while camping nearby. Y'all need more history? I bought a book. This is like a Cliff Notes version of Cliff Notes about what I can now tell you about Natchez.
It was the best :) My hubs is the best. I'm already scheming about when I can go back!
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