Vicksburg, Mississippi-----the old South

Today was a wonderful, wonderful day of enjoying the deep south with its antebellum mansions and on a more serious note, learning more about the Civil War. This a.m. we toured several antebellum mansions in Natchez that are only open twice a year… very special…..One was absolutely amazing…..not only for its history, but also the effort that went into building it, and then too the effort that has gone into renovating it. The grounds were beautiful…. much like those in “ Gone With the Wind. “ Originally this plantation had 20,000 acres…but over the years land has been sold off, so now they have 48 acres……. all still beautiful with a lake, garden area and many many huge trees. The house had to basically be rebuilt including about 36 huge columns and a big wrap-around porch as well as a double-portico front. The rooms indoors were exquisitely filled with Waterford chandeliers and beautiful antiques.

One of the docents explained to us the difference between a porch and a veranda……. If you go out and have a cup of coffee, it’s a porch ……if you go out and have a mint julep, it’s a veranda. …..and if you don’t go out and have anything, it is a shame.

Speaking of which, I had my very first mint julep when we dined out tonight in yet another antebellum mansion here in Vicksburg. This house had been used as a hospital for the Union soldiers during the war. Today it still has a cannonball stuck in the wall of the parlor. In the 1840’s, the house was a gift to a young bride on her wedding day from her wealthy husband. They then spent the whole first year of their marriage touring Europe looking for furniture for it. Different lives.

This afternoon we toured the military park at Vicksburg, watched a movie explaining how critical this town was to the Civil War because of its position on the Mississippi river, and viewed the cemetery with about 30,000 graves (marked and unmarked) of Civil War soldiers. The military park itself was huge…..driving around ½ of it took us more than an hour. With its rolling hills, ravines, and dense growth of trees/plants…..not to mention the heat and humidity…….we could see how difficult the fighting was.

Natchez, Mississippi

On to Natchez, Mississippi

Finished up the coach’s “spa” treatment at the factory in Nacogdoshes Tx in one day……did not have to stay over to Monday…..so all of a sudden we found ourselves with an extra weekend. Now when has that ever happened before. So we headed up to Shreveport looking forward to yummy shrimp gumbo. However upon arrival, the Lexus….once disconnected from the coach…..was dead….again. We jumped the battery again and put a trickle charge on it. So we decided to stay in and have dinner rather than venture forth with iffy transportation.

This morning we took the Lexus into the Sears Diehard battery center---had it tested….again…..and again it passed the test. So we are sticking with it for a little while more.

Then on to the American Rose Society Garden………my expectations were totally off. I expected to see roses and roses and roses…….instead we saw pine trees and pine trees and pine trees interspersed with some small rose gardens. It really covered many acres. Unfortunately they had a very wet summer and the roses really suffered. So there were not too many in bloom. The few we saw looked and smelled wonderful. ( Another lady in our tour group put it another way......shekept saying “Dang, those roses sure stink pretty”. ) Our guide kept saying how the time to come is in the spring ....April 5^th-10^th. Who knew? Tiffany and Jeff could have given a better tour of the roses at their house!!

Now …since we have some "extra time"….we are veering off the path and heading towards Natchez Mississippi for their “Fall Pilgrimage” where they open up 24 antebellum mansions for tours and have evening entertainment……for a 2 week period. The show we will see tonight in the Natchez Little Theater is “Mississippi Medicine Show”…..with music of Stephen Foster, Jerome Kern, ….and will include spirituals and Civil War songs. Should be fun.

Coming into town through Louisiana and Mississippi I was amazed at the huge fields of cotton…..that went on and on and on. We are in a very pretty rv park …”Plantation Park” with huge trees all around. Dave has already met Warren who was born and raised in these parts.......and let us know that the Louisiana love- bug-----apparently the name of the bug of which we has many many samples on our windshield......needs to be washed off immediately otherwise if left on overnight these bugs leave a chemical that starts eating through the paint. Fortunately Dave had already washed ours off.

.....and now off to a fun evening.

Nocogdoshes, Texas

Arrived in Nocogdoshes, Texas today after an easy, pleasant drive in. This area of Texas is not at all what I expected......it is just beautifiul. There are many many beautiful big green trees and loads of pine trees and some pretty lakes. The town has a population of 30,000-----so they are keeping all this beauty a secret.
Upon arrival in the huge parking lot next to Foretravel in preparation for our appointment here tomorrow, we went to unhook the Lexus from behind the coach.......only to find out it was dead. Fortunately in this huge lot, we could maneuver the coach around to give the battery on the Lexus a jump. Then we went to back the coach into one of their nice parking spots (complete with hookups).....when we saw the back mud-flap was half-off........so we had to take that all the way off before backing up. That was a huge job. Then we noticed there are a good number of chips in the paint on the front of the car.....apparently because of the mud-flap dragging and kicking up stones. That will have to be taken care of.
Soooooooooo at this point we are nicely parked along with about 10 other coaches in this huge huge parking lot all waiting for service tomorrow. Actually not all waiting for service.......two of the coaches are new to the people and they are busy moving from their old coach into their new......all fun to watch and hear about. Great way to meet people! So now that we are settled for the night we decided to eat here in the coach rather than venture out with the car for dinner. Time for a glass of wine.

Carlsbad Caverns

OK, so the Carlsbad Caverns were incredible. Dave really enjoyed seeing them ....and the scientist in me came out....once we got past the entrance with the cave swallows swooping in and out. The choice was to take the elevator down about 800 ft or do the 1 and 1/2 hour walk thru the "natural entrance". There were signs everywhere warning of "possible exhaustion and weak knees". they didn't mention that in spots it would be so dark we wouldn't be able to see the numbers on our audio-tour-guide-gadgets. But the walk down was so worth it.....giving a feel for the immenseness of the cavern and also some of the history about the man who discovered this with no path to lead him as well as those people in the 102-'s who came down steep wooden stairs to see all of this (and then had to climb back up). Nowadays you have to take the elevator up.....not that we had any other thoughts.
The caverns themselves were amazing. it's very hard to convey the variety and immensity of it all. Pictures do not really even convey a portion of what is there. Yes, Dave had a great idea to go see this. On the other hand, when he mentioned putting Mammoth Cave in Kentucky (the longest in the world) on the what-to-see-next list......well, we may have to talk.
After the caverns it was off to Abilene, Texas. Travelling across the ranche and farms of Texas, we met up with many, many bugs on our windshield. And if the government could meddle in our lives a bit more, it would help if they required farmers to post what their crops are. We kept seeing 1 crop but could not label it even after googling "Texas agriculture".
Now we are nicely parked in a KOA rv park.....the sound of the cicadas is beautiful to us city-folk.

Sept 25

Up at the crack of dawn....ready to roll with the sun....Why? to Nordstrom's sale? a day at Disneyland? a day at the beach? Nooooooo. Have to get to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico so we can go deep into the earth where it is 54 degrees, dark, damp..........oh and probably beautiful. Actually to be fair, we should have 2 versions of today's blog....one for Kay's view and one for Dave's. You might be able to guess who is writing now.
As we cross Arizona and New Mexico we are amazed at the number of rigs on the road like ours....a 40 foot or so rv towing a small car behind. Before we got into this, we had never really noticed this. Also we are surprised by the number of people out here driving/vacationing/not working. Jillian, our GPS, is doing well.....she's been a wonderful help.
The black-eyed susans are plentiful and so are the ocatillos. Not long after passing the Continental Divide, we saw the Rattlesnake Springs picnic area.......no, we did not stop.
We arrived in Carlsbad too late for the last 3:30 tour.....who knew a cave would close. Our first time change hit today as we are now on mountain time.
However we are in time for the nightly "Bat flight" when thousands of bats fly out of the cavern at dusk and fly off ......to return in the wee morning hours. Apparently it can take 2 or 3 hours for all the bats to leave the cavern. There is a "Bat flight ampitheater" where you can sit and watch them take off into the blue/pink sky. If our alarm clock holds true, we'll be up in time for the 8 am ticket sales to actually go into the cavern. (We will not be opting for the 4 hour tour where you need to bring your own flashlight, extra batteries, and kneepads). So we are going to on the self-guided tour.

On the road again!

On the road again…….this time just the two of us…….towards Holly Springs, North Carolina with a long stop in Nacodoches, Texas for some spa time for the motorcoach at its birthplace. Tonight we’ll stay in Tucson…..where it is expected to be 94 and sunny. In the meantime we have the "Today" show on tv (driver Dave listening/ passenger Kay watching) ,followed by “Regis and Kelly”, followed by “The View”, followed by Ken Burns’ “War” which we taped last night. All this interspersed with custom-made cd’s of country music from Tiff and Jeff. Driver Dave has a yogurt smoothie while passenger Kay has a cup of tea as she sits with her feet up in the comfy seat knitting a sweater for one little grandchild and watching the scenery. Already we have gone from the palm trees and windmills in Palm Springs to the saguara cactus in Phoenix.

After arriving at Beaudry’s RV Resort in Tucson, we found our way to the Saguara National Park and took beautiful sunset pictures. The number of saguaro is remarkable. Then off to El Charro, a great Mexican restaurant recommended in our new book “Road Food” for delicious margaritas and the best tamales we have ever had. All this followed by a yummy dessert of flan on top of rich chocolate cake and a side of vanilla bean ice cream….sprinkled with churro strips and drizzled with chocolate. Yes, indeed, it was scrumptious.

Tomorrow is another day and we are off to Carlsbad, MN and the caverns.