November Newsletter Now Available at ActiveTravels.com

After working diligently with our website designer this past year, we are pleased to announce the launch of our new ActiveTravels website. We hope you are as happy as we are with the new streamlined look and user-friendly tabs, now easier to use on your mobile phone as well as desktop, laptop, and tablet. We want to thank those of you who provided testimonials! We also hope members take full advantage of the archives section, where more than 3 years of newsletter content can be found on hundreds of destinations. So if you’re thinking of a new locale to travel, this is a good place to start your research. Please tell us what you think. Thanks again for your continued support as we all make 2016 another memorable year of travel!
One of the best road trips I’ve ever taken in North America was with my brother Jim in Mississippi. Starting in Jackson, we headed to Tupelo to visit the small birthplace shack of Elvis Presley. Follow Route 278 west and an hour later, you arrive at the home of writer William Faulkner and the attractive University of Mississippi campus in Oxford.
Continue to follow Route 278 west for a little more than an hour to reach the birthplace of the Blues, Clarksdale. The amount of musical talent that began their careers in this small town of 21,000 is remarkable. Muddy Waters was raised on the Stovall Plantation outside of town. Soul man Sam Cooke was born here, along with electric blues master John Lee Hooker, W.C. Handy, and Ike Turner, whose green house still stands on Washington Street. At the crossroads of Highway 61 and 49, early 20th-centruy bluesman Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for a guitar. Muddy Water’s cabin is one of the highlights of the Delta Blues Museum, housed in a renovated freight depot.
Jim and I spent two nights at one of the most unique accommodations in the country, the Shack Up Inn. Set on the Hopson Plantation, where the mechanical cotton picker made its debut in 1941, owner Bill Talbot has converted six former sharecropper shacks into his own version of a B&B (bed and beer). Each rambling shack pays tribute to a blues legend, like the one we stayed in dedicated to boogie-woogie pianist Pinetop Perkins, who once worked at this same plantation.
Head south on Highway 61 through the heart of the Delta and you’ll find the zig-zag shaped trenches Union and Confederate troops dug during the Civil War’s bloody Siege of Vicksburg, now a National Military Park. Another hour of driving and you’ll reach that gem on the Mississippi River, Natchez. During its heyday prior to the Civil War, when cotton was king, Natchez had more millionaires per capita than any other city in the country. They built palatial estates that were largely spared during the Civil War due to its proximity to Vicksburg. The Union soldiers that survived that battle and made it to Natchez burned the cotton fields but left the homes intact. More than 150 of these structures still stand, including many that are still in private hands.
That includes the Monmouth Plantation, where mint juleps are served in a frosty silver cup promptly at 6:30 in the Quitman Study. Then everyone retires to the dining room, an ornate parlor adorned with long chandeliers and portraits of General John Quitman, who called Monmouth home in the 1820s. The highlight of this comfortable retreat, however, is the meticulously landscaped grounds, shaded by centuries-old oaks and their thick dress of Spanish moss.
From Natchez, it’s a two-hour drive back to Jackson, where we checked out the relatively new Mississippi Museum of Art in the emerging cultural district. Then we dropped off our convertible PT Cruiser and flew home. For the perfect 4-5 night drive through the Deep South, this can’t be beat.
After months of preparation, the Chatham Bars Inn has just announced that it will be holding a 3-day weekend of biking and fine dining over Memorial Day Weekend. Partnering with Lexus, the three-day event includes the Lexus Gran Fondo, a 100-mile race along with professional cyclists George Hincapie and Christian Vande Velde from Boston to Chatham, and 25-mile and 50-mile routes around Cape Cod for us mere mortals. Your biking efforts will be rewarded with a slew of culinary events like a barbecue hosted by one of my favorite chefs in Texas, Dean Fearing, paired with the latest releases of saison from the Blackberry Farm Brewery. A celebratory dinner Saturday night will feature the talents of Chatham Bars chefs Anthony Cole and Justin Urso, chef Carlo Mirarchi (Roberta’s and Blanca, NYC) and sommelier Carlton McCoy (The Little Nell, Aspen, CO). The event will end Sunday with a clambake on the shore at the Chatham Bars Beach House. Expect to dine on freshly shucked oysters, littlenecks, a whole Chatham lobster, shrimp, mussels and more. On Monday, Lexus will provide courtesy transportation for all cyclists and up to two guests back to Boston. Several packages are available for guests looking to stay at Chatham Bars Inn and participate in the festivities.
We had a very warm summer in New England, one of the warmest on record. And it’s still continuing to be warm this weekend, with highs expected to reach the mid-80s on Sunday. So meteorologists in the region are already starting to predict a later fall foliage, similar to last year. The typical peak in central Vermont, from Stowe to Woodstock, is usually around Columbus Day. But I would expect peak to be closer to the week of October 15th. To view the foliage without the crowds, please check out my story for Yankee Magazine last October.