Vicksburg – Natchez – Baton Rouge – New Orleans

TUE June 15

I stayed MON night at a RV park in Vicksburg that was an annex of a riverside casino and when I checked in they gave me a voucher for a free buffet breakfast at the casino. There was also a free shuttle service so I couldn’t pass it up and stuffed myself with a ham & cheese omelet, sausage, bacon, sausage gravy, fried potatoes and corned beef hash. Um, um, good.

Off to the Vicksburg National Military Park and it made up for my disappointment with the Tupelo National Battlefield. I started with the Visitor Center 20-minute movie to give the overall perspective and then I did the driving tour. Thinking back to the pictures of the era that I had seen there weren’t many trees shown but today the area is full of trees. But the driving tour took me up and down hills and the North and South positions were well marked and explained. I was very easy to see the advantages the South had with the high ground and how hard it was for the North to attack uphill. This is an excellent Civil War battlefield and you can see the pride taken by the various states by the monument they erected early last century. Also lots of cannon and lots of Generals.

Onward to Natchez, lunch and a visit to the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians; I enjoyed the small museum and visitors center showing arts and crafts of the Natchez and then I walked the area to see the burial mounds for chiefs and a replica house.

I drove through Baton Rouge looking for a McDonalds so I could get Wi-Fi. Didn’t see any signs so I got off at the LSU exit thinking I could find something and that didn’t work either so off to New Orleans without a real plan on where I was going to stay since a call told me that the RV park run by the Naval Support Activity was closed down. Finally found a McD and got a couple of addresses and moved out to the less expensive one, pulled in and pulled right out, nope. My second choice is very good; on a waterway, across from a yacht repair facility and also with a shuttle to the French Quarter.