Retro-Belle Wife: Friday Road Trip!

I know that it is Saturday and no one will see this until at least Monday, but with Justin playing his game I have to take this time to tell you about yesterday...

First, I just want to say that I married a very good man; a very good, smart, hard-working man. These last few months especially have been a little rough for him though. He has steadily been given more and more responsibility and with that has come interrupted lunch breaks, weekends, and evenings. I love watching him work & I love more that he knows so much about what he is doing. Still, anyone who works hard deserves a break from time to time. I first attempted to surprise him with an overnight trip. It was scheduled for this weekend & with a good number of points on our new card the room would cost less than a third of it's real cost. He was SO excited when I told him...and then the craziness ensued. I won't get into all of the details, I will just say that work schedules, hotel schedules, and other times would not work together for us. In the end, the reservation was promptly canceled, but we did find ourselves with a 3 day weekend nonetheless. Now aware of my original intent, and fully on board with a day's rest, Justin declared Friday, June 20th, 2014, to be Natchez, Mississippi day.

Mississippi Bridge! It's VERY tall and pretty long. I have grown up crossing it plenty of times.

We woke up at 8 (just like Justin wanted). An hour later, we were out the door and headed to Taco Bell for breakfast. Sorry, no pictures this time. I was just coming down off that morning high I find myself on when rushing to get ready for a trip. The drive was nice. It was peaceful and long and, with new music on the MP3 player in the car, we were happy!

View up the Mississippi River. You can't see it, but the water was moving really fast.

That would be the bridge we just crossed. Oh, and that is Louisiana on the other side, or as I call it HOME!

We arrived in Natchez just after 11. Justin was adamant we eat first, and with the lunch hour just around the corner I was ready to find our seats at the best burger place in town. Actually, we had looked forward to these burgers all year long and we drove 2 hours to enjoy them. Slick Ricks in downtown Natchez is definitely worth the drive. Beating the rush, we were excited to see we could eat upstairs this time. I snuck some pictures.

Even though we were the first ones there, we still had to wait about 30 minutes for our order. The burgers are amazing and the fries are hand-cut, so it is understandable. Warning: Do not sit above the kitchen! Heat rises. By the time we got our meal, we were so hot that we weren't very hungry. These burgers by the way, may look small, but they are stuffed! We plan to stick to the plan next time and just share a burger.

Justin ordered the Hawaiian Specialty (house patty, root beer glazed ham, grilled pineapples & cherries, provolone & bbq)

I ordered the Double Bacon Burger (Smoked bacon piled high topped with cheddar cheese, green onion sauce, vine ripe tomatoes and spring mix).

Afterwards, we headed out to do some walking. Y'all this is something that I love about Natchez. Justin and I can park our car facing the Mississippi River and walk back towards and all through the downtown area. It is open and clean and very nice. If, however, you are already hot, June is not a good time to attempt walking without a plan. We had no plan. We walked into a few stores & then prayed we would find another with air conditioning. At one point we walked back to the restaurant just to buy a drink. We were just about to give up when we came across this one store that had caught Justin's eye.

Justin picked the Viking duck & I picked the Victorian duck!

Y'all, look what they had! I don't know why, but I have had a secret soft spot for rubber ducks for some time. I always want to buy the really cute ones that I see, but always leave them behind. For $1.75 during a special trip, I gave in. They had every kind imaginable- Christmas themed, Pirates, Nurses, Armed Forces, Construction...the list goes on.

With our ducks in hand, we walked back out into the heat. We made the block again and sighed. It was only 1:30 and we had done all we could think to do. The stores we remembered had either moved (and we were too hot to look for them any longer) or they were closed. Now please know there are museums and homes to tour in the area, but neither of us had planned on it yesterday and we had become so hot that touring a nice home was no longer an option.

View from the river- part of the downtown area.

Walking back to the car, we stopped for nothing. We hopped inside and turned the air on full blast. Only a southerner could create such a beautiful, wonderful necessity! I am sure the police officer parked nearby was having a good laugh at us. Even we were laughing at ourselves. As soon as the air kicked in and we could both breath steadily, we got back out again. We walked along the path to snap a few pictures because, in spite of the short time that we were there, we really did visit Natchez yesterday.