May 10th was a very long day for us and especially for our daughter, Elissa and hubby, Karl.  She started labor during the night and it stopped in the morning and returned at 3PM.  Our beautiful new grandson, Julian Hardy, 7.7 lbs and 20" long was born at 12:48 on the 11th of May.  I can only look at the pictures and really can't wait to hold him.  I am so lucky to be able to see pictures immediately with phones and Facebook and email.  I wasn't lucky enough to have all those contraptions when my other grandchildren were born.  All except, Alyvia, as I was there for her birth, which was amazing, but hard at the same time to see my "baby" in pain.  I am so lucky to have six grandchildren to love. God has blessed me.

On May 4th we left for Sioux Falls to spend some time with Michelle and family.  We were anxious to see them as it has been quite a while since we've seen them.  Alyvia was confirmed on Sunday and after church services Michelle and Kevin put on a big buffet with some really yummy food.  They always cook up a storm and there was plenty of very tasty food to eat.  Alyvia did really well with the lines she had to memorize for the church service.  She has gotten so tall and is such a pretty young lady!  Briar looked really good and he's got some massive muscles on his arms!  He is working at Lewis Drugs and the golf course part-time.  I am just so proud of Alyvia and Briar!!!  We left Monday morning after having breakfast with Michelle.  Wished we lived closer!!

Judy & I are getting the house, yard, clothes, ect ready for our trip to Sioux Falls Friday.
We will take two days to drive there because we are retired and never rush for anyone.  Nor do we seriously watch any clock.  It's just comforting to feel that once a person has "paid their dues", they have the privilege of relaxing - I mean really relaxing to the point that you are not longer bothered by those " I should" thoughts.

The Natchez Trace crossed the Old River Road at one point.  We needed to see part of that also.  Along that road there are very few towns or any other signs of civilization.  Eventually we found a town with a gas station and a restaurant.   We got gas and decided to try the restaurant. As we parked in the restaurant  lot we noticed no other cars (we should have recognized that as a warning).  We spoke with a lady who was loading a garden tractor onto a trailer pulled by a pick-up truck.  We asked her whether the place was open and she said it was.    She invited us in.  Turns-out she is the owner/waitress/cook..

Well, there was no menu - none  - not even those that hang on the walls.  She suggested we try their hamburger with fries and some other side. That was our choice.  We did.

This place had  booths on either side next to the windows and four or five tables placed together in the middle of the room to form one long table about 14 feet long

 The booths on one side were used for storage ; TV,  plants, pictures, luggage and other household items which occupied most of that space. The long table was similiarly used for storage, but had relics of past restaurant decorations and more plants things.

We sat on the non-storage booth side.

There was one other person in the restaurant.  He was seated in a booth on the storage side.  We found out he was the husband of  the owner/waitress/cook.  She told us that he recently had a stroke and had Palsey. -  so she brings him to work with her so that she can watch him..

The food was not bad and the building could have been a-lot cleaner, Being an old country boy ,  good food normally  outweighs a little dirt, but Judy had just told me about the pink slime she had read about in the news.  That news item along with the restaurant's cleanliness issue and the sick old man in the corner.  Well, I just couldn't finish that burger.

                                                    David's  advise -----------

The Old River Road is for sightseeing only.  If you find a restaurant and yours is the only car in the lot, don't go in.

Rosalie House

Rosalie House

Kitchen and slave quarters

Dave & Judy at  Windsor Ruins 

I will continue with our trip.  I need to backtrack as I forgot a couple of things that we saw in Natchez.   We went through Rosalie House which is owned by the DAR and they did the tour in costume of that day.  Beautiful old mansion with huge oak trees out in the yard.  Their was a walkway leading to a brick house that had the kitchen down stairs with the slaves living upstairs above the kitchen.  Each of the rooms in the mansion has a large rope which was pulled when they needed a slave.  Each slave would listen for the tone of their bell.  I cannot imagine my life being totally controlled by a bell.  The thought of it sends shivers down my back and I feel the need to apologize even though I was not involved in the whole torrid affair.  We went to Windsor Ruins which was a mansion built in 1859 and finished in 1861.  It was built by Smith Coffee Daniel for $175,000 which would be 3 million in our day.  The owner died a few weeks after it was built at the age of 34 leaving his wife and three children.  It was four stories with 25 rooms with 25 fireplaces.  It was used as a Union hospital during the Civil War.  It burned down in 1890 due to a cigarette and the 23 columns remain.  This was a few miles off of the parkway but was worth the trip.  We saw many wild turkeys on this drive.  We walked the trace in many different locations in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee.  The trace was sunk 30 feet in some places due to it being on Loess ground.  Animals first made this path from Natchez to Nashville with people following and then it was a post route with Congress voting to clear the route for the postal service.  In some areas you would see up to three trails each higher then the previous one due to rain and thick mud and being impassable.  We went through a cypress swamp which was so quiet and beautiful.  Their was a bridge built  and a trail to walk.  All and all we had a wonderful time driving the 444 miles of the Natchez Trace at 50 MPH which was the speed limit.

We spent one week traveling the Natchez Trace.  We spent our second night in Natchez, Mississippi.  Our hotel overlooked the Mississippi river with the bridge close by.  It was beautiful at night when all the lights on the bridge lit up the sky.  One of the first places we stopped was Elizabeth Female Academy which was in operation from 1818-1845.  I tried to imagine what it would have been like to send a daughter out to a school in the middle of nowhere.  I just couldn't imagine how terrifying that would be for both parents and daughter.  The next thing we saw was the Emerald Mound.  It was massive in size.  It is 2.5 by 1.5 football fields and 35 feet high.  It was built by the ancestors of the Natchez from 1250-1600.  It was very impressive.  We saw one of the first hostels at Mount Locust located along the Natchez Trace trail which was established in 1820.  It is one of the oldest buildings in Mississippi, dating to 1780.  As we were driving into this area we passed 20 or so model A's---they were each different in color and fun to look at.  This area also had Civil War people camping out and Dave was shown how to throw an ax into a tree which he did on his second try which he was proud of.  This area also had a slave cemetery which I went to look at and on the way there some little ants found my foot   to bite.  I went from sandals to tennis shoes quickly as these ant hills were everywhere!  Will continue later.

I opened a Facebook account recently because so many internet information pages are easily accessed via Facebook.  Usuallly, I get all the socializing I need from Judy's Facebook pages, but I'll try  my own pages for awhile - just for the experience.

Thursday, Judy & I will go to Natchez, MS to drive the Natchez Trace which will take us 444 miles North to Nashville, TN.  We will read and experience a part of history that was not covered very well during my schooling.  I know the history taught - in the South - was probably not any more biased than it is today.  It was just expedient to pick & choose those topics that were important to - the South.

This trip will be deliberately slow with frequent stops so that we can read all the signs adjacent to all the historical sites.  There will also be fish to catch, short trails to walk and some very interesting restaurants to visit.