Day 5 of the Great Trace Chase: Going Home

We got up on Saturday morning, had a little breakfast our of our cooler, and headed to our last big Trace location. We wanted to visit the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians that was on the south side of Natchez before we left town and started for home. There was a little museum with exhibits on pottery, religious ceremonies, dress, and diet of the Natchez Indians, a tribe descended from the Mississippian mound builders that we had been learning about all trip long. Outside, there were two mounds to climb and a reconstruction of one of their houses. We also hiked a nature trail on the property of the village.

After this last Indian site, we started home. W decided that instead of going the old boring route,we would go south from Natchez and drive along the beach at least for a while. It was a grey, rainy kind of day, but we still got out and padded around the beach in our bare feet with our pants rolled up to our knees. We touched our toes to the water, but it was COLD. Livy chased sea gulls for the first time.

After that stop, we drove for the rest of the day (a total of nearly 12 hours) toward home. We finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, both by Roald Dahl. Livy read to me from Phonics Pathways, her newly beloved reader. We ate fast food because we were sick of our stupid cooler. And when we reached home at nearly midnight, as I carried the sleeping Livy into the house, I said, "We're home, sweetie." She replied, still mostly asleep, "I love home."