Taking on New Adventures

I spent my teenage years in North Mississippi, and although the city we lived in was relatively small, it was still a suburb of Memphis so never felt “too small”.

I’ve always been intrigued by small town life. From the time I was in high school, I really just wanted to be in a city. And now that I’ve lived in the biggest one of them all, at least in the U.S., I am fine with a little smaller one. But I still consider myself a “city girl”.

This past weekend, I decided to go with a couple of friends to stay in small town America and slow down for a few days while celebrating my friend’s birthday. We took a train up to Laurel, Mississippi, home of the HGTV show “Home Town” for a two night stay.

The last time I had been in Laurel was in high school. I honestly don’t recall anything distinctive about it but I do know I’d been here, at least for some type of game. So stepping off the train meant a brand new adventure.

My friends and I rented a small house just on the outskirts of the downtown area. The home was featured on the show in Season 2 and since my friend is a huge fan, thought it’d be fun to stay here. I didn’t disagree and am so glad we did!

It’s a super cute house, definitely an old one but one that really does look like how they redid it on the show. Sure some of the furniture is different but the layout is exactly what the showed in the episode, which was kind of nice as a TV person since it didn’t seem like they tried to make it seem any bigger on the show.

We arrived around 10am on Thursday and spent the next two days walking around downtown and shopping as well as checking out the historic neighborhood nearby. There were some really beautiful houses and some that, with some work, could be beautiful. You could definitely tell the town is “up and coming” in a way since there were both beautification projects going on in that area along with several home construction projects.

One of the coolest things we did was pop into the Lauren Rogers Museum. I had no idea that this is the oldest art museum in the state of Mississippi and it was really neat walking through and seeing the collections of art, baskets weaved by women in the Native American tribes that were near Laurel, and the various gifts given to to the Rogers family from England.

The town is definitely smaller than I expected. I knew the downtown area didn’t encompass a large area, but it’s actually a little bit bigger than I realized. However, there are just a few restaurants there and no bars in the area, other than the ones in the restaurants. And because of that, the restaurants are packed on the weekends.

Although the walking around was fun, we spent a lot of time on the front porch of the house drinking wine and enjoying the Spring weather. It was definitely what I think I’d be doing a lot of if I lived here.

Overall, going to Laurel for my friend’s birthday was the breath of fresh air that was desperately needed. From walking around to popping into the local butcher shop every day for steaks, jerkey and some frozen selections to bring home to shopping in the cute little stores situated along the downtown streets, the relaxing weekend was so nice and a great way to end February.

Small towns definitely aren’t where I want to live full time. I definitely realized this weekend I am a city girl who likes the hustle and bustle. But slowing down sometimes is necessary and that is definitely something a town like Laurel offers.

Now it’s time to plan my next adventure!