Entrenched in Civil War history, Vicksburg, MS plays a vital role in the fall of the Confederacy.

So far, our trip through the southern states has been really “eye opening”. I mean that very sincerely. When I start planning a 16-week trip, I can only take a cursory look at the attractions available in the community surrounding a campground. There are many factors that go into selecting a route and the stops along the way, and we are never entirely sure what we will find.  Not knowing what we’ll find makes stops more intriguing and we really try to explore the area.  (As a small aside, I could not imagine trying to route our travels without Google maps and the RV Trip-Wizard software application. These two website programs, in my opinion, have made RV trip planning, dare I say, fun.)  For this trip through the southern United States, I accidentally, but really on purpose, put together a trip abundant in Civil War & Civil Rights history. Mixing in some resort type campsites like St. Augustine, and Cedar Key, FL with more historical places like Charleston, SC and Montgomery, AL.  

And what I have encountered these last 10 weeks or so has enlightened my perspective and deepened my understanding of how destructive the Civil War was in our nation’s history. The only war strictly fought on US soil between US citizens. And nothing drives this message home more forcefully than a trip through the 2,500-acre Vicksburg National Military Park. This park commemorates one of the most decisive Civil War battles, the campaign, siege, and defense of Vicksburg, MS. Confederate president, Jefferson Davis believed that, geographically speaking, Vicksburg was the lynchpin holding the Confederacy together, by connecting Louisiana and Texas to the rest of the Confederate states. The Vicksburg campaign was waged from March 29 to July 4, 1863. It included a half dozen battles in west-central Mississippi, as well as a 47-day long siege by the Union army under the command of Ulysses S. Grant against Confederate forces defending the heavily fortified city of Vicksburg. Located high on the bluffs, Vicksburg was a fortress guarding the Mississippi River. It was known as "The Gibraltar of the Confederacy." Its surrender on July 4, 1863, coupled with the fall of Port Hudson, Louisiana, divided the South, and gave the North undisputed control of the Mississippi River. The historic battlefield includes 1,325 monuments and markers, 20 miles of reconstructed trenches and earthworks, a 16-mile tour road, 144 emplaced cannons, the restored Union gunboat-USS Cairo, and the 116-acre Vicksburg National Cemetery.  My gosh, what we have learned about the Civil War on this trip through the southern states, has just been mind-blowing. By now Judy and I have found ourselves repeatedly saying, “this is nothing like 10^th grade US History we were required to take in high school”.

By the way, Vicksburg is situated on this crazy bend in the Mississippi River, up on a hill, in such a way that you can clearly see the river flowing from the north, then turning due east as it approaches Vicksburg, before turning south again in an exaggerated “S” curve. A layout you’d be more inclined to see on a BMX racetrack, and not the great Mississippi River. No surprise, this means Vicksburg is on a rather steep hill as you move away from the riverbank.

Closest to the river is The Old Depot Museum. Housed in the old railroad depot building and adjacent to the Mississippi, it doesn’t take much imagination to envision this area as a bustling port and transfer station where riverboat cargo was transferred to trains bound for the east coast. The museum is committed to preserving Vicksburg’s rich history and heritage. The museum is home to over 100 models of Civil War gunboats, an amazingly accurate diorama of the Battle of Vicksburg, as well as a stirring video of the trials of the citizens and soldiers during the siege. But the best part of this depot museum was, once again, the model trains and associated railroad equipment. The Old Depot Museum is dedicated to the railroad industry and features N, O and HO layouts, complete with buildings, scenery, and architecture. Just an eclectic collection of artifacts all tied to Vicksburg.

From the Depot we walked up the rather steep riverbank, to the tallest bluff overlooking the Mississippi, where the old Warren County Courthouse sits. Which is now a museum. The courthouse was a prominent symbol of Confederate resistance during the Siege of Vicksburg. During the Civil War, the building was one of the main targets in Vicksburg. As hard as the Union tried, the building suffered only one major hit. After a 47-day siege, on July 4, 1863, the Stars and Bars were lowered, and the Stars and Stripes were raised. On the second floor is the courtroom where trials were conducted. During the Reconstruction-era, the Warren County Courthouse was the site of the first brutal event related to the Vicksburg massacre, when Black citizens were attempting to reinstate the newly elected Black sheriff, Peter Crosby, who had been coerced at gunpoint by a white militant group to sign a paper of resignation. The unrest eventually ended with the arrival of the US Army the following year. We lost track of time exploring this museum so, not unsurprisingly, we were halfheartedly chased from the museum by the only remaining staff member, as we lingered through the exhibits on the second floor, until well after closing. There were just so many original artifacts of the last 300 years of US history, it was easy to get caught up in the displays and pieces.

 

Judy sitting in the witness chair of the old courtroom.

And for a bit of fun, we visited the most haunted house in Mississippi, called the McRaven House, on a blustery and rainy Saturday night, complete with thunder and lightning. McRaven haunted tours were led by theatrical guides in time period costumes who gave a brief history of the Vicksburg, MS families who occupied this historic house for 200 years. The house was added onto in three distinct time periods of US history, giving this residence quite a storied past. I think the best part was watching the guy wearing a Ghostbusters costume complete with utility belt and ghost detecting equipment slink around the house activating the detector in search of a ghost. It was all a lot of fun and a great way to spend a rainy Saturday night.

Vicksburg is not a big city, and right about the time we had figured out where everything was situated and how to maneuver around the town, it was time to pack up the RV and head north for another state neither Judy nor I had ever visited. That state is Tennessee. This is our first of four stops in Tennessee, so for the next month or so we might just have to consider ourselves residents. Our fist stop is in Memphis, where we may visit Stax Museum of American Soul Music, or see where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel, or even visit Elvis at Graceland. These are just some of the attractions on our radar, but you’ll have to read our next blog as we tell…the Rest of the Story.

Not all destinations are as charming & engaging as New Orleans, but we do our best.

Our tour of the southern states of the US is reaching its halfway point. We are 14 stops into our 24-stop trip and still learning about the nomadic RV lifestyle. Here are a couple of unintentional observations:   

1. Families with children in campers on vacation have disappeared from the landscape. Sure, we do bump into the occasional family with children probably being home-schooled and living in a camper, but for the most part we have seen very few kids. 
2. Some RV campsites are more touristy, and some campsites are more of a working-class neighborhood. When you hear diesel truck engines starting at 6:00 am in the morning, and slowly driving off for the day, you know you’re in a working-class RV campsite. And it all makes sense now because we are in a southern climate where living year-round in a camper is feasible.  
3. When we visit cities, towns or regions, the activities and excursions usually fall into two basic types. There is, what I would call, pastural, with lots of park land and / or beaches, with a more laidback atmosphere. Then there are the metropolitan type places, with museums and galleries and a distinctly upbeat vibe.   
4. The weather “can either win the horse or lose the saddle”.  True, the cold and snow of a typical New England winter is all but a distant memory for us, so I’m sure there’s not much sympathy from people tolerating winter weather. The weather can really be a factor in determining how robustly we can explore a place.  Anybody who has taken a week’s vacation in a tropical paradise only to have it rain for 4 out of the 7 days, knows that the weather can wreak havoc on a trip.  Some stops are better suited to accommodate poor weather, but ultimately mother nature can be a delightful friend, or bitter enemy. 

Although these observations appear unrelated, we have found them to have an impact on our experiences at a destination. This is especially true when these observations or attributes are found to be prevalent in certain combinations.  Here are a couple of examples:  a) Poor weather can be better accommodated at a metropolitan type of stop. b) Touristy campsites will have more families with children. c) Working class campsites in metropolitan areas are very quiet during the day.  And then there’s the doomsday scenario: poor weather, at a touristy campsite, in a pastural area.  Auggggh, the worst!  All of a sudden, the unrelated observations detailed above have a profound impact on our ability to explore our destination.

That best explains our 7-day stop in Gulf Shores, Alabama, which is where we went after leaving the unseasonably cold state capital of Montgomery.  Our stop in Gulf Shores was a bit of a dud. We were at a lovely RV park, very touristy in nature with a pool, and a club house, only 2 blocks from some of the nicest beaches on the Gulf out on the barrier island.  And the weather absolutely sucked. It was either windy, raining, or cloudy for all but 1 day of our visit. The wind blew the beach sand everywhere, the rain and drizzle meant that just stepping outside inevitably had us tracking sand wherever we went, and walking along the beautiful long and fine white sand beach in the cloudy damp weather was not enjoyable. How bad could it be you ask? So bad that we have a combined total of ZERO pictures from this stop. I was tempted to not even mention this stop in the blog, pretending it never happened. As the saying go, “pics or it didn’t happen.” Enough said.

Then just one week later we found ourselves in New Orleans, LA. Here we had five mostly sunny days, parked in a working-class RV campsite, in a metropolitan area. Just a great combination of attributes for a magnificent time touring and exploring New Orleans. The campsite was situated on the bayou, 11-miles south of the French Quarter.  We found that using UBER for day trips into New Orleans was the simplest, and most cost-effective mode of transportation (parking the truck in the city is expensive).  Needless to say, it was a busy week full of adventure and sightseeing. Let me see where to begin.

So much to tell, so let’s get the basics out of the way. We did the usual touristy activities, including having Beignets & Cafe Au Laite at Café Du Monde, complete with a 5-piece brass band.  We walked the French Quarter, visiting shops, eating food, and watching sidewalk musicians and entertainers work the crowd. We visited Lafayette Park, and perused paintings and handcrafts displayed therein. We tried and ate gator and roasted oysters (yum).  We walked along the French Quarter Riverwalk, visiting the New Orleans Holocaust Memorial with art by Yaacov Agam.  And….

• What would a trip to New Orleans be without a food tour in the French Quarter? Incomplete, that’s what. We signed up for a 2 ½ hour walking food tour with Kristi of Destination Kitchen. We started with a treat of Kings Cake from Roux Royal, then moved onto Shimp Po’boy at Dickie Brennans Tableau, and ended with fresh Pralines from the New Orleans School of Cooking. But our favorite stop in the middle was at the New Orleans Creole Cookery, where we sampled, for the first time, Jambalaya, and roasted oysters with parmesan cheese. New Orleans truly is the melting pot of so many cooking cultures, and the food was amazing. I could go on, but writing this is making me hungry.

Beignets at Café Du Monde

Shimp Po’boy

Fried Gator and Broiled Oysters

• We spent a sunny day visiting and exploring New Orleans City Park, which was modeled after Central Park in NY City. There is much to see within the confines of the 1,300-acre park, including a Botanical Garden, the New Orleans Art Museum, a Storyland Park, and a Stadium. We brought a picnic lunch and walked much of the park, including the outdoor sculpture garden associated with the Art Museum. The highlight for me was the historic New Orleans Train Garden. This gem of an attraction is tucked away in a lush corner of the Botanical Garden. Here, model trains ¹/₂₂ of the actual size zip around 1,300 feet of track carrying streetcars and trains like those that traveled the city in the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Live bonsai plants are used in the landscapes.  It was so much fun to watch the trains go around the multitude of tracks. Much of the rest of the Botanical Garden was seasonally dormant, but the walk through the Japanese garden was calming with the towering bamboo trees, tranquil waterfalls, and Japanese inspired sculptures. 

• We drove to visit the town of Madisonville, LA, which required us to drive across Lake Pontchartrain, which lies to the north of New Orleans. Driving from shore to shore across this 24-mile-long bridge is freaky, because when you’re 5-miles away from the departing shoreline, one cannot see land anywhere. An endless bridge that seems to lead into the middle of water.  

• Our campsite south of the city was convenient for driving further south into Jefferson Parish and the bayou.  At the southern tip of Barataria Bayou there lies the unincorporated village of Lafitte, LA.  Most of this town sits on or abuts marshes and mud flats. Our first stop was The Wetland Trace Nature Boardwalk.  Here we found a park which contained a couple of miles of elevated boardwalk that allowed us to explore the 41 acres of wetlands. We saw wild alligators for the first time, as they laid sunning themselves on the mud flats. We found a picnic table and had lunch. The “gators”, as they are called by the locals, were not interested in us or our lunch (If you can believe it there were signs indicating not to feed the alligators).  Our second stop was at Airboat Adventures for a 2-hour ride on an airboat through the bayou. We boarded a small airboat, on a warm sunny afternoon, with an experienced guide, and cruised through the cypress swamps & bayous to see alligators, snapping turtles, herons & hawks. Ever been on an airboat before? That makes two of us. When the engines are cranked up, these machines are a thrill a minute. But they are also capable of silently gliding into delicate bogs where alligators lie in groups and snapping turtles sun themselves on logs. We found ourselves thoroughly engrossed in the natural beauty of the cedar, live oak, and bayou environment. One of our best excursions, and hopefully the included pictures give the experience proper justice.

Wetland Trace Nature Boardwalk

I think I have whiplash. There was just so much to do and see in and around New Orleans, which was a complete flipside from our week in Gulf Shores, AL. The key to the success of any stop on our journey is, of course, the weather. If the weather had been more cooperative, then Gulf Shores would have been a fabulous beach stop, and one that we will have to try again. In the meantime, we will be remembering our stop in New Orleans for years to come. And just like that, our seven days stop in Bayou Barataria RV Park was over. We had reached the westernmost point on our southern tour and were headed north to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Another week, another new state.  But not without one more pass through the city of New Orleans, as we drove around the west side of Lake Pontchartrain, to pick up Interstate 55 north as we continue our travels and tell …the Rest of the Story.