We stoped along the way to see a home called Rosswood, very nice.... site of the Battle of the Cotton Bales. It seems the Yankees were coming from the river intending to destroy Rosswood, but heard about some baled cotton in a town a little farther along. So they decided their time would be better spent by stealing the cotton instead. The Rebels caught up with them; they all did the battle-thing; and the Rebels took the cotton away from them... right in front of the house! Rosswood only suffered a few stray bullets. It was so delightful that we can wind our way around and take time for interesting little out-of-the-way places like this.

While finding our way back to the Trace, we noticed a sign for Windsor Ruins. We had always heard about this, and had seen pictures of it.. but never knew where it was. So off we go.... the Windsor Ruins were awesome. It must have been the most amazing house. It survived the Civil War only to fall to a careless cigarette smoker in 1890. What a loss.

We also visited Locust Grove... an 1810 stopping place on the trace. Used mostly by keelmen who took barges down the Mississippi and walked home along the trace with their earnings.... and were usually robbed somewhere along the way.

In Natchez we chose three houses to visit that were museum homes and not B&Bs. We really like them much better without all the modernization.

We saw beautiful Rosalie... Here was an interesting story of Union Gen. Grissom who commandeered the house during the Civil War but allowed the owners to remain... each living in half of the house. The two families became friends.. a friendship that continued even after the war.

Across the river, in Louisiana, but not far from Natchez, is Frogmore Plantation. It consists of cotton fields, an operating cotton gin with restored antique gins as well. First we saw how the gins extract the cotton seed. Have you ever tried to take a seed out of cotton? You can see why cotton was never a cash crop until the invention of the gin. It is an amazing thing.

It was here at Frogmore that Gypsy got to finally go into the field and pick cotton. Well, that was easy enough. Like pulling a cotton ball out of a bag. But in order to be productive, one would have to pick hundreds of pounds of cotton a day.... oh.. I think Gypsy should forget about her cotton career and just get on with the tour.

Cuz: Needless to say folks, Gypsy's "root" isn't buried too deep.

Our guide told us that here at Frogmore, the farmers can have their cotton ginned for free... and the gin retains the seeds as payment. I asked our guide if there was research being done to develop seedless cotton... and she said, "No, because then the farmers would have nothing to barter with and would have to pay cash to have their cotton ginned." Oh...of course... stupid Gypsy for thinking that seedless cotton wouldn't need to be ginned!

While we were here by the fields, there was a plane dusting the crop... and the gin... and the buildings... and the tourists. This was for boll weevil eradication. It is a comfort to know I will never have boll weevils; they're ugly little things.

Then we got to go to the modern gin which was running full tilt! The owner of the plantation and the gin gave us a tour and it was fascinating.

Cuz: To me, after seeing Ms Lynn and Mr. Buddy Tanner on videotape for about 45 minutes, I felt like I was in the presence of rock stars! Mr. Buddy then took us in his HUGE cotton-colored Ford Ranger (probably with exploding tires) and drove us to the gin. Gypsy almost lost what was left of her "virtue" by riding on the seat belt holder on the middle jumpseat. Mr. Buddy then showed us cotton seed (WOW) Lint (DOUBLE WOW), Cotton husks (I'm about ready to pass out with excitement) and then the warehouse so full of cotton seeds that he gave us some free in order to become rich in Maine planting cotton.

After this he asked if we would like to ride to the fields. Gypsy probably thought she was going to have to go to work now to help Mr. Buddy make the payments on his cotton picking machines, but we were told that he had some spare time....so off we bounced! Probably he had just been sprayed for boll weevils and was feeling really good about himself. Seriously, though, it was quite interesting to see the machines "poop" out the cotton.

Yeah, WOW! We learned that for every 500-lb bale of cotton, almost 800-lbs of seeds has been extracted.

Cuz: For those of your who like Trivial Pursuit, CRISCO (according to Mr. Buddy) got its name from CRYStallized Cotton Oil.

Back in Natchez we continue our house tour with Auburn...

...and Stanton Hall. These are such wonderful places... we want them!

Down the highway again... and back into Louisiana. Our first stop here was Angola (Louisiana State Prison). We couldn't manage to be here on a Sunday to see the famous rodeo... but we least we visited the museum. Not only is the museum fascinating... with Old Sparky, the electric chair; but we also got to see a video of the rodeo. There were so many interesting exhibits... a great stop. Dead Man Walking was filmed here... and this is the prison that Stephen King had in mind when he wrote The Green Mile, I am sure.

Baton Rouge. What a city... and the capital of Louisiana, too. We had one miserable time trying to get through the city. The routes are not marked at all... and we ended up making a complete circle, ending up back where we started. This took all the adventure out us and we decided we didn't need to see anything in Baton Rouge... we will just concentrate on getting the hell away from this place.

Cuz: Kinda like Newark with a Southern Drawl

We got onto The River Road....the river was the road on which were built many lovely and interesting antebellums.

Houmas House Plantation

Butler-Greenwood

Nottoway...64 rooms, but we didn't get to see very many. This house had a white ballroom. Ceiling, walls, and floor were white. Only the furniture was normal color... so you could find it in the room, I suppose. I expected this room to be faubulously beautiful. But I was rather disappointed... too much white and the room seemed quite bland and uninteresting. Incidentally, this house had 200 windows and 165 doors. Knowing how we all feel about washing windows and door glass... let us all move on the the next house...

Oak Alley was just as beautiful as it should be. The long alley of oaks that lead to the river was amazing... although today it just leads to the levee. They were selling mint juleps here and people were walking through the house drinking them too. That seemed strange. And it occurred to us that these same people would soon be getting into their cars and driving down the road. We wonder if they have any driving laws concerning alcohol here.

Cuz: This house boasted a completely PURPLE bedroom which looked like something out of a horror movie! Gypsy just grabbed her head and moaned...I stood there with my mouth open! It was like someone had exploded some Grape Nehi in this room! God knows what this woman was thinking...if at all!

Cuz, I wasn't going to mention that part.

Laura was a completely different house as it was a Creole Plantation. Their houses were bright colored, not white..the people spoke French, not English (nor did the French and the English socialize)... and the houses had galleries all the way around, not part way, and they were always raised one story off the ground. Many of these galleries and lower floors were later enclosed to provide more rooms.

Many of these plantations were run by women, by necessity or through inheritance. Laura was one of these. When an early Mistress of Laura Plantation found a rich French husband in New Orleans, she had him sign a pre-nup that all of his financial assets would pass to her upon their marriage. This woman was WAY ahead of her time!

San Francisco's name was originally, Sans Fruscins which means "without a penny in my pocket". The state in which the original owner found himself after he built the house. It was Americanized to San Francisco by a later owner. This, too, was a Creole home and a wonderful house to visit. However, there were some painted ceilings.. with cupids... that made yours eye squint up and get watery. They were that ugly!

Cuz: The woman that took us through was very strange and just loved everything she said - which was way too much even for Cuz - and punctuated each sentence with a stacatto "Ha (pause) Ha (pause) Ha". I don't know if she was waiting for us to join in or not, but after seeing those cupids stuck all over the ceiling I just wanted to vomit (HA! HA! HA!)