More friends and movin' up the Trace

On Wednesday morning, we had arranged to meet up with Ken and Mary Frances and their two daughters, Leslie and Elizabeth, at a local restaurant favorite, Mama Hamil's.

At the front is the small cabin which used to house the restaurant...

... the new building is much larger and still has large crowds (and beautiful roses outside!).

'Specially painted tractor out front

Mama Hamil's is a All-You-Can-Eat Southern Soul Food Buffet (https://www.hamils.com/). We had fried and baked chicken, ribs, chicken 'n' dumplings, turnip greens, black eyed peas, green beans, lima beans, all sorts of salads -- we tried to take a little of everything, but there just wasn't room on the plate -- and then you were so full you didn't need to go back -- but we did for desserts, anyway!

Ken, Mary Frances, Patti, Carl

Leslie, Mary Frances, Ken, Elizabeth, Patti

It was so good to reconnect with this sweet family. Leslie was in high school and Elizabeth in elementary (maybe middle?) school when I last saw them. So good to catch up with them and so nice that they all live close and can see each other often!

After lunch, we returned to the church (Harvest Host site) where we got Gracie ready to go, hooked up the Jeep, and headed out to get onto the Natchez Trace Parkway.

The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 444 mile long road...

... from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee...

... allowing no commercial vehicles...

... and roughly following the path of the Natchez Trace ("trace" = "trail" in French).

It was overcast and sprinkled some...

... but was still a beautiful springtime drive!

We planned to stop at Jeff Busby Campground, one of three free campgrounds located along the Trace. Dwayne and I had driven the whole length of the Natchez Trace Parkway back in November of 2014, and we had stopped at all three campgrounds. We knew that it may be more crowded since we're traveling in the springtime, but were hoping that since we'd be there mid-week, it may not be totally full...

It wasn't *totally* full, but we did not see an available site that we could fit in -- we noticed that a travel trailer was parked in one site that was quite long, and we had read in reviews that it was acceptable to ask other campers if you could join in their spot -- so we asked, and they said it would be fine. You may notice that Gracie is not quite level -- in fact, she had quite a lean toward the back driver's side, more than we could correct with jacks...

... so we decided to just put the one back slide out...

... and to just live with being un-level.

Information about Jeff Busby and why the park was named for him.

We walked up to a "viewpoint" about a mile up from our campsite...

... it wasn't much of a viewpoint, but we got out and did some walking!

It was quite warm and quite humid. We had run our generator much of the previous night at the church (they encouraged us to, indicating that Mississippi is hot and humid and we might need air conditioning). Since we were parked right behind our neighbor's trailer, we didn't want to disturb them running the generator much - so we ran it about an hour in the evening to cool Gracie down, and then appreciated having fans to help through the rest of the night.

We are surprised to already be experiencing 80s during the days, and weather only cooling off into the high 60s at night. There is supposed to be a cold front coming through in a couple of days, and we're looking forward to it!