A month or so ago, I took the grandson on an overnight ride up into Mississippi. We found this funky little place for breakfast......anyway, it made my butt hurt just watching him sitting on that pillion pad on the rear fender. Ordered a set of Ultimate seats. Plus, when I got this bike, the seats were covered in faux ostrich skin.
Looked OK, but I am just not an ostrich skin kind of dude. So seats came in and I thought I had a stock rear passenger pad in the attic but couldn't find it, so ordered the Ultimate pad. So, I put the seats on and waited for the pad - and by the way, Des and Ultimate changed the stiching on the seats - look sportier to me - I like the look.
So, the Ultimate says that it should be broken in after about 500 miles........."Hmmmmm", says I. Let's go ahead and click a few of those babies off. HEY, that funky place my grandson and I found, sure did have a good pancakes there (and it's only about a 100 miles from here) and there is awesome chicken a 100 miles or so from there. Rode trip baby! Since I am in that neck of the woods, may as well check out the area where my mamma grew up - where my grandma's house used to be.....Day Trip = Roxie RIDE! Whooooo-Hoooooooooo!
Got up, had coffee with my child bride and shot off at about 6:00. Brisk 90-95 degrees for the day.
Rode up I-49 to I-90 and then over to Livonia and up through New Roads and crossed the Mississippi River and into St Francisville. This is where my grandson and I had come on a plantation ride a month or so before. They had this cool, funky little joint called the Birdman Café that we had breakfast at, so I stopped by again.........
Funky joint. You gotta dig a café that boosts Coffee and Books and doesn't even have a book. It shares the parking lot with the oldest motor court in Louisiana.
Well, it was coffee and PANCAKE TIME!
Great pancake and got to pick up a cool hippy tee shirt for my child bride. Left out, stuffed like a tick, gassed up and started riding up 61 towards Mississippi.
I was cutting across to get up to Roxie, Mississippi. There was a road that was supposed to cut from 61 to 33 right after I got into Mississippi according to Maps when I had checked the night before. I got on it and must have missed a turn (don't remember even seeing an intersection though). Anyway, I will call this the "awesome road to nowhere" or "road to anywhere". It was a great ride down this 2 lane, tree lined road that went on for about 20 minutes......great sweepers and stuff and beautiful country.
So digging the ride for 20 minutes or so. Came to a highway, which if it was 33, I should have turned left on. Did it and 10 minutes later, I was back where I began at the Louisiana/Mississippi line. Hmmmmm, been here, done that......
U-turn and back up 61 into Mississippi. What the heck, just go into Natchez and cut across there.
Right outside Natchez, I passed this lunch joint. I must have passed this thing 50 times and never really noticed it.
Wikipedia says: Mammy's Cupboard (founded 1940) is a roadside restaurant built in the shape of a mammy archetype, located on US Highway 61 south of Natchez, Mississippi. The woman's skirt holds a dining room and a gift shop. The skirt is made out of bricks, and the earrings are horseshoes. She is holding a serving tray while smiling.
It also says that it has awards and is known for it's homemade pies..........PIES? Well, sounds like a run for another day.
Rode through Natchez and cut across to Roxie. Roxie is where my Grandma's house used to be and where my mamma grew up. It is basically a ghost town now. Last time I was through, the little store was used as a box lunch place - it's gone now.
From Wikipedia: Roxie was founded in 1886 on a plot of farmland donated by John Quincy Adams Graves, who was the County Supervisor and a former soldier in the Regimental Band of the 4th Volunteer Mississippi Regiment during the Civil War. The town was named in honor of Graves' newborn daughter.
Roxie was incorporated in 1890.
The town was located at the crossroads of the Louisville, New Orleans and Texas Railway and the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad. Most of the early residents were employed by the railroads, or worked in the logging industry and sawmills.
I am related to the original Graves.
The corner lot is where my grandma's boarding house was. Don't think of this huge boarding house. It was just a house and my grandfather died when my mamma was 5. So, the 8 kids slept in my grandmother's room and one other and she rented out the others and fed all the travelers. The depot was there, so it was people on their way to Natchez or the railroad workers. It had a screen porch that went all the way around and ladies would come in and cook 3 squares a day. My grandma died and the house is gone. The depot was torn down and the stud mill closed - and Roxie was gone. Population is listed at 400 but that must be out in the country as well.
This was the old funeral home next door to grandma's. Mom used to play in the caskets there.
This was Ms Maude's store across the street where my brother and I use to go for an ice cream in the afternoon's when we were visiting.
Back inside the bushes behind the funeral home was the old jail that was at the back of my grandma's property and right by the old water tower (wood) that used to be there. It was a cinderblock, metal roof, 2 room jail - segregated. It may be there, but is now covered over.
As far as I could tell, there was a little community center, the post office and this one business left.
Then rode out to the church where all my kin folks are laid to rest - Union Baptist Church.
My great-great grandpappy was minister there in 1878 - Solomon Buffkin - he is buried there as well.
Well, I was sucking fumes, so found a gas station and shot up 33 (nice 2 lane state highway) to Fayette, Mississippi, back on 61 and up to Lorman to stop for some of the best fried chicken in the world at the Old Country Store. Eaten here a few times and it has the best chicken - may look dry in the pictures, but it isn't - most moist there is. First heard about this place on Alton Brown's "Feasting on Asphalt" on the Food Network when he rode a BMW around and ate at the "best" funky joints.
The building is over 100 years old and is run by a one of a kind guy, King Arthur Davis - who will greet you and even come over and sing at your table at times.
BOY HOWDY!!!!!! Chicken, yams, peas and greens with sweet tea - yazaa!
Oh, there were 3 Harleys out front with Indiana tags and were loaded down with gear on the bags and huge bags on the trunk. Nice bikes - but packed like they were on the road for weeks. Met them inside and they had all the gear on - Harley hats, shirts, glasses.....you know the guys/girls. Anyway, met them at the buffet and told them cool they had ridden down. They told me they had trailered to the start of the Natchez Trace and had a guy meeting them with a trailer at the other end. "Ahhh, OK" Later gators. All of that gear for a two day ride? Anyway, it was time to start working my way back anyway.
As long as I was close, shot over to Windsor Ruins to check them out again. I think they have increased the area that is fenced in.
Been there a few times. Smokin'Joe took everyone there on his Trace Ride a few years ago.
From Wikipedia: Windsor mansion was located on a plantation that covered 2,600 acres (1,100 ha). The mansion was constructed between 1859 and 1861 for Smith Coffee Daniell II, who was born in Mississippi and had acquired great wealth as a cotton planter by age 30. In 1849, Smith Daniell married his cousin Catherine Freeland (1830–1903). The couple had six children, with three surviving to adulthood.
Windsor mansion was built facing the Mississippi River and was located about 4 mi (6.4 km) east of the river. Although much of the basic construction of Windsor mansion was accomplished by Smith Daniell's slaves, architect David Shroder supervised a crew of skilled artisans—carpenters, plasterers, masons, and painters—from Mississippi, northeastern states, and Europe to do finishing work on the mansion.
The footprint for Windsor mansion was set by 29 columns which supported a projected roof line that protected 9 ft (2.7 m) wide verandas on the second and third floors. The 29 columns were constructed of bricks that were covered with stucco. Each column was more than 3.5 ft (1.1 m) in diameter at their base and stood 40 ft (12 m) tall. The columns were constructed atop 10 ft (3.0 m) tall, paneled brick plinths that were almost 5 ft (1.5 m) square. Bricks were made in an onsite kiln. The fluted columns were crowned with ornate, iron Corinthian capitals, and the columns were joined at the height of the third floor by ornamental iron balustrades.
Column capitals, balustrades, and four cast iron stairways were manufactured in St. Louis and shipped down the Mississippi River to the Port of Bruinsburg, about 2 mi (3.2 km) west of Windsor mansion.
Windsor mansion was constructed as a 3-story block, consisting of a ground floor basement, with living quarters on the second and third floors. The main block was 64 ft (20 m) on each side. A 3-story ell projected from the east side of the main block. The ell measured 59 ft (18 m) by 26.5 ft (8.1 m). Archeological examination suggests that outer walls were constructed of wood covered in stucco. When completed, the 17,000 sq ft (1,600 m2) mansion contained three hallways and 23 to 25 rooms, each with its own fireplace. A featured innovation for that time period was the inclusion of two interior bathrooms supplied with rainwater from a tank in the attic. In 1861, cost of construction was about $175,000 (equal to $4,766,481 today).
The ground floor basement contained a school room, doctor’s office, dairy, commissary, and storage rooms. The second floor had a hallway flanked by the master bedroom, a bathroom, two parlors, a study and a library. In the ell off the second floor was the dining room. Connected to the dining room by a dumbwaiter was the kitchen, located on the ground floor. The third floor contained an additional bath and eight more bedrooms. Eight chimneys extended from the slate-covered roof, and a domed cupola with glass walls was constructed above the attic, over the main block of the mansion.
On April 28, 1861, Smith Daniell died at age 34, just weeks after construction of the mansion was completed.
Civil War era
Once the American Civil War began in 1861, Confederate forces used the Windsor mansion cupola as an observation platform and signal station.In the spring of 1863, as part of his Vicksburg campaign, Ulysses S. Grant and 17,000 Union troops landed at the port of Bruinsburg and took control of Windsor mansion. Following the Battle of Port Gibson, the mansion was used by Union troops as a hospital and as an observation station. The Daniell family was allowed to live on the third floor of the mansion during the Union occupation.
Windsor mansion survived the war and continued to be used by the Daniell family as a home and for social gatherings in the area. During Reconstruction, the family derived income by leasing part of their vast land holdings.
For more than 100 years, the outward appearance of Windsor mansion was a matter of conjecture. But in the early 1990s, an 1863 sketch of Windsor mansion was discovered in the papers of a former Union officer, Henry Otis Dwight, of the 20th Ohio Infantry. Historians believe that Henry Dwight made the sketch while his unit was encamped on the grounds of the mansion.[4]
Fire
On February 17, 1890, a fire started on the third floor when, according to tradition, a guest dropped ashes from a cigarette or cigar into construction debris left by carpenters who were making repairs.Windsor mansion was destroyed leaving only the columns, balustrades, cast iron stairways, and pieces of bone china.
Time to get back - had told my missus that I would try and get back in time to walk/feed the critters. Was going to ride the Trace back to Natchez, but decided for time, just to get back on 61 south.
Back to Natchez and stopped at Jefferson College. Never stopped there before. It was used as West Point in filming of the series North and South.
Crossed the Mississippi River in Natchez (and got caught in construction on the bridge) and it was starting to warm up - clouds had burned off. Stopped for gas in Louisiana and shucked the jacket - as the witch said in Wizard of Oz, "I'M MELTING!"
Got on the levee road which is really cool - good condition with nice sweepers and no traffic. It is 131/15 along the river. Only problem was on 15 just north of Simmsport, they were working on a section of road where you had to follow the lead truck back through thing. Dirt and fresh oil surface - a lot of fun on a bike. Stopped in Simmsport at the Captain's house.
Down 105 to Krotz Springs - another full speed sweeper road and got on 190 back to 49 and home. Great day of riding and got 430 - 450 miles in and was back in time to walk the dogs!
Whooooo-Hoooooo!!!!
And I guess I ain't the only one that digs the Ultimate seat.
Like Joe said, "Long live the DRAGON!"
