Vicksburg National Military Park

We left our host in Prattville and headed to our next boondocker location. For some reason it was taking us south on I-65. I thought we were supposed to be going west not south. I checked my gps–taking us south down I-65. We’re driving along about 30 minutes into the trip and I started really questioning why we were headed south. It wasn’t making sense. I looked at the map and realized I put our last destination (meaning the last one on our way home) into the gps (which was in MS also but along the coast). We had to turn around and head back the opposite direction–past our last boondocker and head in the right direction. Luckily this trip is about taking it slow and we only had a 3 and a half hour trip so all was not lost.

We arrived at our new location with nothing special to talk about for todays travel day. But, our hosts are amazing. After directing us where we were to park he showed us his camper–which was freaking awesome considering it was one of those you put in the back of the truck. It was surprisingly roomy and had a much bigger bathroom than ours and the pantry was soooo big. Also, their refrigerator was huge. We looked into them because it is one I could drive and still gave us lots of room. Needless to say they are 80k so it isn’t happening. But it was a nice thought. And then, our hostess showed me her sewing room. LOL She is a quilter. She has some beautiful quilts. I sat and chatted with her for about an hour and then went out to help John. Darn, everything was already set up and he had started dinner. My bad.

Today we got an early start to Vicksburg National Military Park. It was about an hour and 10 minutes away and we took the Natchez Trace Parkway. It is a 444 mile scenic parkway that runs from Natchez MS to Nashville, TN.

It was a beautiful day to go through the park. It really is just a park where a number of battles occured during the Civil War. Now it is marked by red and blue signs (depicteing the Union/Confederate troops) and huge monuments donated from the states where the troops came from. Oh, and there are lots of cannons.

From what we learned, the Confederate army knew the Union army was coming for them, so they prepared in advance and just waited for them to arrive. All they had to do is hold their ground. The Union on the other hand came in and had to fortify their soldiers and then try to make advancements on the Confederates. They lost most their battles but, you can see the placards all through the hills. The Confederates where on much higher ground and could see them coming so it it isn’t a surprise that they kept losing. I had to google because I really don’t know which battles they won or lost–I read a lot of the plaques that stated they lost–anyway the Union won several important battles that helped them win. The real win came when they were able to cut off all supplies. The Confederqtes were starving and out of ammunition. I guess that is a good reason to surrender.

Sometime during this war or all the battles that took place the USS Cairo was sunk in the Mississippi River. There is a museum in the park and the ship (an Ironclad) was excavated from the bottom of the river and restored (somewhat) in 1965. We did go in the museum and they had all kinds of artifacts but one of the most interesting to me–and I didn’t take a picture but, they had condiment containers. One side said USS Cairo and the other mustard or whatever sauce. They explained that there was a pepper sauce that was in a bottle and 102 years after being sunk and then retrieved from mud, someone tasted it and said it was delectable. I am sure it was the peppers lol.

After leaving the park we still had half a day ahead of us so we picked a park on a huge lake to have lunch. It was beautiful but nothing to do there. No trails or anything. So we headed north on the Natchez Trace Parkway and stopped at another area and took a small hike, then farther up the road we stopped at another park and from there we headed home.