My favorite way to wake up in the morning is to putter. The Tinmann Retreat is perfect for
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| Tinmann Kitchen |
puttering. After the kind of sleep you can only get in
the country – miles from highways, cars and all kinds of man-made noise – I was
the first to wake up. I got up and I
puttered. I made a little coffee, read a
little, wrote a little, listened to the birds a lot, and then waited for the
boys to wake up.
And then we all puttered some more. No rush.
No schedule. Nowhere to be
anytime real soon. At one point, Ross
walked outside and down to a little creek west of the house. He stood there for 10 minutes watching for wildlife. While I sat in a comfy leather chair the boys
would wander in and out from their bedroom foraging for food and stopping
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| Tinmann Living Room |
to
chat. We all ate our breakfast in
courses and stages and basically had a very relaxing morning just doing a
little bit of nothing.
If you are ever this way and want a little slice of
perfection in the woods – we highly recommend this place. It is located a little over 20 minutes from
Natchez and even less from the Natchez Trace.
It’s the perfect distance to serve as a home base of operations.
When we felt like it, we headed out to tour a couple of antebellum
homes in nearby Natchez. Founded in 1716
as a French fort, Natchez is the oldest city on the Mississippi River. Next year, Natchez will be celebrating its
300th year of existence and, according to the locals, it will be a
party all year long.
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| Longwood Front Porch |
Natchez is special just because it isn’t special. The spot it occupies on the Mississippi is
not strategic in any way – so General Grant and Sherman left it alone. As a result, it is home to more than 600
examples of antebellum architecture – more than any other in the south. You can spend several days just touring the
historic homes within the town and its surrounds.
We toured two. We started
at Longwood Plantation which – if you are a family made up of mostly males – is
really the only one among them that will be interesting. First, Longwood is in the shape of a hexagon,
so even before you walk in the door you know there is something different about
this home. Second, and the thing that
makes Longwood unique, is that it is unfinished.
Longwood was under construction as the civil war began. Its builders had
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| Longwood Upper Floors |
all come from Pennsylvania
and other parts north. So when the war
began, the builders promptly put down their tools and left the area. The family and their eight children continued
living in the 10,000 square foot basement until ultimately, they turned the
mansion over to the Natchez Garden Club for preservation and restoration. If the mansion had been completed, it would
have been 6 floors and 30,000 square feet of living space.
Once you are finished touring the rooms on the first floor,
you climb the stairs to the upper floors which are all unfinished. The Garden Club ladies have graciously
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| Lunch at The Camp |
enhanced the building plans so you can catch the vision of what the mansion would
have been when it was finished. And it would
have been something very special.
From there, we headed to Natchez Under the Hill for lunch. This area was the original “City of Natchez.” Its 20 or so buildings were all the city
contained until shortly after the Revolutionary War. According to historians, the area was a
frequent visitation spot for gamblers, river pirates, highwaymen, cut-throats, prostitutes
and all manner of despicable characters.
It was described in one publication like this: “for the size of it,
there is
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| Skipping Rocks with the Old Man |
not, perhaps in the world, a more dissipated spot.”
Today, you will not want to miss poking your head into the
Natchez Under the Hill Saloon which has a rich history. The saloon frequently has live music and a
regular crowd of afternoon patrons who gather on the porch to shoot some
bull. We ate lunch next door at The
Camp. We sat on the front porch and polished
off BLT’s, Grilled Cheese and a BBQ Chicken sandwich while watching several logs
and one barge float down the Mississippi in front of us.
During lunch, we found ourselves getting philosophical. There is something romantic about passing
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| All You Need is a Stick |
the
time, casually eating and staring at the activity on the river. It’s slow, lazy and carefree time. It’s time made for thinking big
thoughts. It’s time made for dreaming
big dreams. And so like moths to a
flame, as soon as we were done eating the boys left me to pay and wandered down
to the water’s edge. And I didn’t mind –
because something primal inside of me told me they needed this time to
commune together with the Old Man. They
came back bearing a single, yellow Jonquil and I knew I’d done the right thing.
From there, we drove to High Street and Stanton Hall. Frederick Stanton was an Irish immigrant and
cotton merchant who made a bundle of money off of the cotton industry in the mid-nineteenth
century. The mansion cost $83,000 to
complete – a cool $3 million in today’s dollars. The Pilgrimage Garden Club owns and gives tours
of the property. According to the local
guides, the family is
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| Stanton Hall |
slowly returning the original furnishings to the home –
including an entire 5 piece bedroom suite that just arrived. Of particular note also is the entire set of hand
painted china original to the home.
It’s a beautiful home furnished with mirrors imported from
France, gasoliers from Philadelphia, and marble mantle pieces from New
York. The guide indicated that much of
the wood to build the home was the cyprus and pine native to the area. To make it appear fancier, the owners would faux
finish the wood to make it look like more expensive mahogany and oak. They would also finish the floorboards to
look like black and white marble.
Decorating this way was apparently preferred to ordering the real stuff
because that would, of course, just be showing off.
After the tour of Stanton Hall, we drove around town looking
at additional homes and then headed up the Natchez Trace to look at EmeraldMound. Emerald Mound is one of the
largest ancient Indian mounds in North America.
The mound is 35 feet high and contains two smaller mounds on top of
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| Emerald Mound |
the
large one. Scholars feel it was built
and used between 1250 and 1600 A.D. Its
builders were the ancestors of the Natchez Indians and the site was used as a
ceremonial and cultural center for the local population.
We had the mound to ourselves with the exception of two
young women and their dog Miles who took an instant interest in the boys. Miles and the boys played “chase” and “catch”
on top of the football field sized surface while his owners and mom and dad
looked around. This site is worthy of
seeking out if you have the time.
We drove back to the cabin using the Natchez Trace, getting
out of the car at one point to put actual foot to original road. It was here that we found a spot to satisfy a
curiosity that had been bugging us since Vicksburg – what exactly does Loess
feel like?
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| Walking the Trace |
And it is definitely interesting. The area had experienced a little rainfall so
the Loess soil was wet. If you have ever
played with the play sand that exists in toy stores these days – the kind that
holds it shape but doesn’t dry out – it feels kind of like that. In other words, it feels a little like
non-gritty sand, but looks a lot like regular dirt. There is definitely no evidence of the clay
that is so common in the dirt in Kansas and Oklahoma. Even rolling a tiny bit of the damp soil
around in our hands left no trace of mud.
It simply balled up in smaller and smaller pieces until we tired of
rolling it around. We brushed it off and
it was as if we never held it.
Fascinating stuff, I tell you.
From there – it was back to our cabin in the woods and a relaxing
evening.
