Our anniversary trip!
Stuart and I will celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary on July 31st! It's crazy that a year has already passed! We decided to celebrate a weekend early because I likely am going to have to work this weekend, and one of Stuart's friends is having his bachelor party this weekend. So Stuart surprised me with a trip to Natchez, MS one week early!
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| Stuart pinned the white pin in our "next adventure", Natchez, MS! |
You may think Natchez is a strange anniversary destination, but we highly recommend it! It's a sleepy Southern town on the banks of the Mississippi River and is full of charm. It's been home to the ancestors of the Creek and Cherokee Indians, French colonists, and even Union soldiers. Of course now the main population consists of southern ladies and gentlemen who like to show off their Antebellum roots.
We arrived on Friday afternoon and were introduced to our home away from home - the Twin Oaks Bed and Breakfast.
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| Humidity + camera = foggy lens |
This beautiful home is owned by a cute little couple, the wife of which is semi-famous. Her name is Regina Charboneau, and she has been featured in many magazines and has been on television for her Southern cooking. She's also famous for starting a Southern-themed bar in San Fran called Biscuits and Blues. Unfortunately, Regina had a family emergency right before we came and wasn't home for us to meet and greet. Fortunately, there is a Biscuits and Blues conveniently in downtown Natchez, so we headed on over there for dinner!
We munched on some complimentary biscuits to start, and let me tell you - they were some of the best I've ever had! Crispy edges and super soft on the inside ... coated with a brush of butter and served with apricot butter! Can't get much better than that! And for the entree, Stuart had their famous fried catfish po-boy, and I couldn't resist something called Eggplant Orleans. It was basically fried eggplant with both a red and white sauce, with grilled shrimp and fried oysters to boot! Whoa!
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| Delicious biscuits |
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| Yum! |
To work off some of our caloric intake, we decided to walk around downtown after dinner. Well it didn't take too long before we ran smack into the Mississippi River. We walked along the banks for a while, both people watching and barge watching.
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| Please ignore new haircut with the wind-blown effect! |
The next morning, we headed across the street to another Antebellum home for our complimentary breakfast. We piled our plates high because we were planning a hike in a local nature preserve that morning!
After breakfast, I wanted to walk across the street to check out what was behind this mysterious fence I saw from the road the day before. It turned out to be this really cool cemetery (those are three words you don't often use together). Anyway, the graves there were from circa 1850. I'm not sure why, but I think old cemeteries are really neat. Of course, not for long.! We got a bit creeped out and then headed out on the road to St Catherine's Wildlife Preserve.
Well, we attempted to head out at least. I was under the mistaken assumption that a Wildlife Preserve was much like a national park. You know, with a little office and cutesy maps and nice bathrooms. Well, I was wrong. We took the Prius on quite the adventure, driving through miles of dirt and gravel roads to try and find this place. Eventually, after crossing a few wooden one lane bridges, we saw a quite primitive hand-carved sign saying "lake" one way and "something else that I can't remember" the other way. We decided seeing a lake would be fun, and took a roger.
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| Who knew hybrids could off-road?! |
Well, after a bit of what my high school classmates would have called "mudding", we saw several strange rusted structures right off the road. Stuart recognized these as old-school oil and/or natural gas tanks. I thought it odd to house environmental threats near wildlife, but nevertheless we pressed on. A few hundred feet later, we rounded a turn to encounter totally water-covered road. The reverse was switched on and we headed back down where we just came from.
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| Um, sketchy |
Several minutes later we re-encountered that sign, and just for the heck of it, went the other way. Well what do you know but a bit later we saw a new friendlier sign welcoming us to the wildlife preserve! I don't know where in the heck we had been before, but we were relieved to have found what we were looking for! Sort of ...
Once we were actually in the preserve, we couldn't find a place to park! Of course there was no trail map to be had either. Bordering on frustration and desperation, we pulled over at the first place where we could see a trail from the road. Legal? Probably not. Did it work? Yep!
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| Where in the heck are we? |
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| OOOHHH! Poor thing =( |
The wait and frustration was worth it! The trail was beautiful! We saw tons of birds and even a deer on our hour-long walk. Humans were a rare species on the trail - we only saw one quiet family. It was so nice to spend some quiet time in God's creation together!
After we had been soaked through with sweat, we decided to call it a day and head out for some lunch. And what's better after a good work out than BBQ?! I drove and Stuart GPS'ed us to a place called Pig Out Inn. On the way, while Stuart was diligently planning our route, I almost killed us by swerving off the highway into the parking lot of THIS great structure:
Yes friends, this is a giant replica of a Southern Mammy!!! You don't see great architecture like this every day!! Unfortunately, this famed seller of homemade pies and cakes was closed for summer vacation. At least I got a picture =) And now Stuart and I are inspired to take a trip hunting weird roadside attractions!
Our last event was possibly the best of the weekend. When Stuart and I were in Napa a few months ago, we got to experience what's called a "tasting dinner". This is basically where the chef of a restaurant gets to show off and create several tiny courses for the patron to enjoy. While we were researching our Natchez trip, we saw a restaurant called 1818 that does this very dinner. And, might I say, at about a quarter the price of a California restaurant! So of course we couldn't pass that up!
We got dressed for dinner and arrived a few minutes early. We were escorted into the formal dining room of a Southern plantation. The table was set with fine vintage china and candles were lit all around the room. The table was set for 8, and I immediately thought we were going to have a loud non-romantic dinner instead of a quiet night for ourselves. I think we were both a little bummed, but sat down to view the menu for the night with high hopes!
A few minutes later, in walks the rest of the dinner party. A mid-forties couple sat across from us. The wife was blond and gorgeous and the husband had on a white linen suit and one of those messed up wavy hair-dos that takes hours to perfect. We made some small talk and then eventually found out they were Mississippians who now lived in Los Angeles. Well, that doesn't happen a lot, so we inquired as to what they did in LA. Their response? "Oh, we're in the film business. We direct, write and produce movies".
WHAT?!
Images flashed into my mind of this nice little originally Southern couple struggling to make it big in LA Until they explained how they were just finishing up directing "Marley and Me 2: The Puppy Years".
WHAT?!
What are the odds that we just so happened to sit across from this couple at dinner in the sleepy town of Natchez, MS? Over our third course of sashimi-grade swordfish and glass of Chardonnay, we also found out they produced Flicka, as well as several other family-friendly movies. At random times throughout the night, we also discovered that the wife, Janeen, was a Solid Gold dancer and starred in several Prince and Elton John music videos. And, oh by the way, the husband Michael was a big star in The Young and the Restless for a decade or so.
Around course 4 (roasted duck breast with Pinot Noir), Michael learned about Stuart's job at Chevron. He commented on the recent construction of an oil derrick at the Beverly Hills high school football field. Stuart and I made the joke to ourselves about the old-school Saved by the Bell episode where a big oil company wants to make a similar structure at their high school. The Damian's asked what we were talking about and then Michael said, "Saved by the Bell ... oh yeah - I sang the theme song for that. I almost forgot".
WHAT?!
Then of course they digressed to how they just loved Dennis Haskings (Mr Belding) and were so happy when this dear friend of theirs got the role after years and years of unsuccessful casting.
Anyway, to say the least, it was quite the memorable dinner! We didn't get to know the other couples at the table too well because we were so excited by the Damian's! It was pretty neat to hear their stories, and it was also pretty awesome to meet a Hollywood couple who has stayed married for 13 years and believes in the institution of the family!
Dinner ended with the chef coming out to discuss the meal with us. It was such a wonderful evening!
What a great trip! Too bad we had to end our nature excursions and celebrity experiences to come back to work! I'll leave you with some media clips of our new friends (haha) ...
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| The Damian's ... maybe that's Marley? |
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| The only "couple-y" picture I got of the weekend. |
