11/6 Natchez, MS

I am here for a second night, resting from my two long days of driving.  I did drive to the Natchez Visitor Center where I knew there would be good parking, and walked the mile to the downtown area.  (Visitor center said it was four blocks, but I know it was a LOT longer.) 

I was a bit concerned to pass several groups of convicts in green and white striped outfits doing trash collecting and other tasks for the city.  They did have some supervision with them, including a couple of official cars continually circling, but I am just not used to seeing these work crews.  I took a couple of photos of the Mississippi and one of the town, but none of the convicts!

Then, I drove the lower few miles of the Natchez Trace and stopped at Emerald Mound.  The Trace is a 444 miles parkway that follows an old Indian trail used by the people who used to float cargo down the Mississippi. Before there were steamboats, they had to walk back to Nashville from Natchez.  Over the years, the many feet and hooves has worm the Trace as deep as 30'.  Will drive the rest of the Trace on Wednesday through Friday, which is something I have always wanted to do.

Emerald Mound is the second largest Native American mound in the U.S. covering the space of 8 football fields and including two mounds on top of mounds. It's hard to see how big it is from the photos, but there were millions of baskets of earth moved to build this structure!

This whole mown area is the top of the mound, with a smaller mound on top of it in the distance. The last photo shows another mound on top of the mound at the other end of the long mound.