NATCHEZ — Not everyone is used to drinking their tea loaded with ice and sugar and waving at every stranger that passes by.

When The Dart landed at the Natchez Visitor Reception Center on Canal Street, Ken and Laura Postema from Grand Rapids, Michigan were camped out in the RV park after spending their first day in Natchez.

“We took a walk downtown, and we had to eat our way through,” Ken said.

The couple stopped at Steampunk Coffee Roasters for their morning coffee and strolled through the Downtown Natchez Farmers Market, where they found goodies such as pound cake and sweet rolls before hitting Biscuits & Blues for lunch, they said.

“But I have to tell ya,” Laura said, “I always order my tea unsweet because I’m a northern girl, and we don’t like sugar in our tea. People are usually polite about it, but on the bill, it said ‘Yankee tea.’ Surely I’m not the only one who doesn’t drink sweet tea … it has never been called Yankee tea — and it was in print.”

Laura snapped pictures of her receipt and sent it to her friends, who were equally amused, she said.

“They said ‘my word, you’re really far south now,’ but I’ve been further south and it wasn’t called Yankee tea there,” she said.

The couple said they spent time in New Orleans before making an unplanned trip to Natchez and set out Saturday and plan to drive the Natchez Trace to Tupelo and then on to Macon, Georgia.

“We’re retired, so we’re always on vacation,” Laura said. “We don’t travel a lot, but we winter in Florida and were killing time on our way through. … This wasn’t planned, but it has been very nice.”

Laura said everyone she had met Natchez so far was unusually friendly but thought the manners would die off later that night when Michigan State’s football team would play Louisiana State University.

“I don’t think we’ll go to a local pub to watch the game,” Ken said. “They would surely make fun of us there.”

“Especially with me sitting there with my Yankee tea,” Laura said, with a laugh.