Day 3: New Orleans to Natchez, MS

We left New Orleans this morning after a couple of fun days there -- thank you, Tricia, for letting us stay with you! We opted for the Greyhound so that we could begin our journey in a place with less congestion, fewer safety concerns, and to save a little bit of time by skipping over an area that isn't a key part of our walk.

The ride on Greyhound was excellent for people watching, but mostly uneventful. While we were approaching Natchez, a huge thunderstorm was passing through, but thankfully it had mostly subsided when we arrived. With some light rains, we walked about a mile to the Natchez Historical Park and walked the grounds of an antebellum estate. It was a small and simple park, but there was a great exhibit on slavery and we toured the buildings once used for slave quarters. We chatted with a few park rangers, who all seemed enthusiastic for our trip albeit somewhat incredulous.

We walked two miles more to our current location at a motel where we are getting all our ducks in a row before we begin the Trace tomorrow. Today we got some good news and we are approved for a special use permit to camp along the parkway in non designated campsites - this opens up a ton of options for us, so we are quite thankful.

I thought of something that a man in the French Quarter said to us yesterday. He was trying to get us to take a tour in his horse drawn carriage and said to Chris, "You're not going to make her walk the whole way, are you?" To which Chris replied, "I just might." The man said, jokingly, "He must not love you very much." I wonder what he would say if he knew about our plans to walk almost 2,000 miles!