New Orleans - The weather is FINE!

11/18/2019 – 11/23/2019

Monday – 11/18/2019 – Today we moved to Bayou Segnette State Park in Westwego LA near New Orleans. This is another park we stayed at 3 years ago and really enjoyed. Just outside the entrance is a fresh fish market which we like to visit and purchase lots of fresh shrimp. Yum!

Tuesday morning we searched out a Dots Diner for breakfast. On our past visit we stopped at one and I had a Julie Biscuit. It is a yummy combination of a biscuit covered with Swiss cheese, a crayfish sauce and an egg. Might have to have another one before we leave. From there went to the Garden District. We walked around the area to look at the beautiful homes. We also visited Christ Church Cathedral and went to the afternoon mass. Its a very beautiful church and one of the oldest in New Orleans. Then we drove down to the French Quarter.

Wednesday we spent the day at the campground doing a few chores and enjoying the great weather. Temperatures in the low seventies. Sweet!

Thursday was another tourist day. We checked out Longue Vue House and Gardens as well as the New Orleans Botanical Garden. We got free admission to both of these venues with my Horticultural Membership we purchased last winter in Arizona. We took a docent lead tour of Longue Vue House and self guided tour of the garden. Then wandered through the New Orleans Botanical Garden. From there we drove north to Lake Pontchartrain, ate lunch at Landry's Seafood House then took a drive along the lake. We ended up way east of down town New Orleans. When we put our park into the GPS it took us to a ferry crossing at the Mississippi. It was a lot shorter than driving back through the city however once we crossed we ended up in a traffic jam waiting for a ship to pass through a draw bridge. Still better than driving through New Orleans.

Friday we spent the morning hanging out at the park. Later in the afternoon we drove to the Algiers Ferry Terminal. Usually there is a ferry that will take you across the river to the French Quarter however it was out of service but they provided a shuttle bus instead. So we were able to take the bus across the river. Dennis enjoyed it because it was a lot less stressful. We ate supper and wandered around the French Quarter for a few hours. Even got to enjoy some fireworks which was part of the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony on Jackson Square. Got back to the shuttle stop at 8:00 and were back to the campground by 9:00.

Saturday – It rained overnight and the temperatures dropped into the 60's. The sun came out later in the day and it turned out to be really nice. Another day just hanging out at the camper.

Where we are parked: Bayou Segnette State Park – Westwego Ms – Site 42 – Full Hook up - $24 per night, $12 with senior discount.

Garden District

My favorite New Orleans breakfast spot!

Longue Vue House and Gardens

Hand painted models of the rooms in the house

New Orleans Botanical Garden

Belle Chase Ferry

Belle Chase Ferry

Natchez - Ah Oh! Turn on the furnace tonight!

11/11/2019 – 11/17/2019

Monday – 11/11/2019 – Left Tishomingo State Park around 8:30 and headed south on the Trace. By the time we reached Natchez the temperature was 70 degrees. The cold weather low was forecast to dip WAY south with temps that evening to be below freezing. Highs tomorrow in the mid 30's. So we outran the bitter cold for a few days but it is finally catching up with us. Natchez was 300 miles away from Tishomingo so we decided to head there and stay at Natchez State Park for the night. The park was not busy and we were able to get one of the full hookup sites. We did some wash and watched some TV and waited for the cold front to reach us. It started to rain and got really windy. Heard various items falling on the camper but nothing serious that we could tell. Tomorrow's high is only supposed to reach the mid 30's and tomorrow's low the mid 20's. We just couldn't out run the arctic chill. Bummer!

Tuesday and Wednesday – 11/12/2019 – 11/13/2019 – On Tuesday after waking up to a bitterly cold morning (20 degrees) we took a drive into Natchez. Since it was so cold, we mainly just drove around Natchez. We also stopped at Natchez Coffee Co. to access to Wi-Fi to update and post my blog.

On Wednesday it was a little warmer and less windy but still pretty cold. We visited Frogmore Plantation across the Mississippi in Ferriday LA. This is a restored cotton plantation that is open for tours. We learned how cotton is grown, harvested and processed. This included seeing both an old steam driven cotton mill as well as a modern state of the art cotton processing facility.

From there we went back to Natchez to visit one of the historic antebellum homes in Natchez. These homes are grand but are not on plantations. They were built by the wealthy plantation owners to be near town, to attend social events and show off their wealth.

Melrose is a historic antebellum home built in 1849 by John McMurran, a wealthy lawyer and plantation owner. There were only 3 owners of the property and it was always sold with its entire contents, most of which remain in the house today. It was acquired by the national park service in 1990 and is now open to the public to visit and tour. Besides the main house there are two adjacent two story brick structures, one being the kitchen, the other a dairy. Both had slave quarters on the second floor. The property also includes additional slave quarters, stables and carriage house. It is a grand and beautiful property both inside and out.

Thursday - Sunday – 11/14/2019 – 11/17/2019 – Thursday we left Natchez State Park and headed south toward New Orleans. The original plan was to go right to Segnette State Park in Westego near New Orleans however we changed our plans and decided to revisit Buccaneer State Park in Mississippi. This is a very nice park located right on the gulf coast. We stopped here 3 years ago on our maiden retirement travels and really liked it. It was still a bit cold at night with lows in the low forties but it continued to warm up throughout our stay.

Not much new to report as we had seen most of the nearby sights last time we were here. One day we drove as far east as Gautier Mississippi. On the way we visited a Davis Bayou Park, part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. It is a small park with a nice visitor center, hiking trails, a fishing pier and a campground. A good portion of the National Seashore is on the barrier island located 20 to 30 miles offshore. There is a park ferry that will take you to the island but it was not running this time of year. Oh well. Maybe next time we are in the area.

The rest of our stay we hung out at the park and took drives along South Beach Boulevard to enjoy the views of the gulf.

Where we are parked: Natchez State Park – Natchez Ms – Site 1 – Full Hook up - $17 per night with senior discount.

Frogmore Plantation

Cotton Gin Mill Building 

Sugar can press

Add caption

Slave quarters

Pre-machine row spacing

Machine row spacing

Melrose

Main house

Slave quarters

Slave quarters

Where we are parked: Buccaneer State Park – Waveland, Ms – Site 15 – Full Hook up - $28 per night.

Tishomingo MS - So far so good

11/08/2019 – 11/10/2019

Friday – 11/08/2019 – After leaving Fletcher's Rest we took back roads toward the Natchez Trace Parkway to avoid going through Nashville. It was a little tricky finding access to the parkway as there are limited access points. We ended up entering the parkway at the Double Arch bridge around mile marker 339. Dennis was pleased as he did not have to drive our rig over this very tall bridge and I was delighted to see it from below.

What an awesome road! The entire 444 miles is a National Parkway and is the quintessential slow road as the top speed is 55 miles per hour, has limited access and does not allow truck traffic. There are many pull offs to check out various highlights along the road. Although we chose not to stop at them many were large enough for our rig. We did stop at the Meriwether Lewis site to check out the campground. There are three National park campgrounds on the parkway but none with hook ups. Freezing temperatures were forecast for that night so we moved on to Tishomingo State Park which had electric. We paid for two days so we could visit some of the local attractions.

The weather was great today sunny with highs in the 60's. Looks like we are getting out of the arctic chill.

Saturday – 11/09/2019 – Woke to a chilly (30 degrees) but sunny day. Later it warmed up to around 65. Yes! We took a half hour drive to Shiloh National Military Park, a Civil War Battlefield. The battle of Shiloh was fought over 2 days on April 6 & 7 1862. After capturing Forts Henry and Donelson the Union forces had their sights set on Corinth Mississippi, a major railroad crossing. General Grant moved 40,000 troops up the Tennessee river to Pittsburgh Landing, 22 miles north of Corinth. Meanwhile 44,000 Confederate troops stationed in Corinth took the initiative to advance on Pittsburgh Landing in hopes of catching the Union army off guard.

At the end of day one the Confederacy declared victory. However, the next day when they entered the battlefield to retrieve the dead and wounded they were surprised by the Union Army who had gotten reinforcements overnight. For six hours, the Confederates fiercely resisted until they could hold out no longer. In order to save the remains of their army they were ordered to retreat to Corinth. This was one of the first major battles of the war and with 23,746 casualties shocked both the North and the South.

We watched a 45 minute video at the visitor center then took the auto tour through the park. This was a very dynamic and chaotic battle so even with all the keyed plaques it was hard to follow how the battle unfolded in the park. From Shiloh we proceeded 22 miles south to Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center.

The story continues as a month later the Union Army advances on Corinth with 100,000 men and entrenched within cannon range of the confederate fortifications. Knowing they were outnumbered the Confederate army retreated and left Corinth in the hands of the Union army thereby losing this major railroad crossroad. The war was not done with Corinth yet as in early October the Confederacy decided to try to recapture Corinth but after 3 days of heavy fighting were decisively repulsed. This battle produced 4838 Confederate and 3100 Union casualties.

Watched another 20 minutes video at this museum and looked at the displays then headed back to the campground.

Sunday – 11/10/2019 – Another beautiful day with a high of around 70. We drove down to Tupalo on the Trace and stopped at a few of the sites along the route. After stopping at Walmart in Tupalo we went to check out Elvis Presley's birthplace and boyhood home. We walked around the site and saw his family home and the church they attended. There is a large gift shop with all the Elvis paraphernalia you could image.

Where we are parked: Tishomingo State Park – Tishomingo Ms – Site 47 - $16 per night with senior discount.

Natchez Trace Parkway

Shiloh National Military Park

Pittsburgh Landing

This circle of graves were all soldiers from Wisconsin.
It was located in a prominent place overlooking the river.

 Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center

Sites along the Parkway

Standing on the old trace

Pharr Indian Mounds

 Elvis' Birthplace and Boyhood Home

Hanging out with Elvis!

Piggly Wiggle-Ace Hardware in Belmont MS.
Note the fishing gear adjacent to the product section.

Heading south for the winter. Can we out run the arctic weather?

11/05/2019 – 11/7/2019

Tuesday – 11/05/2019 – We are back on the road again heading south for the winter. It seems like winter is arriving early in Wisconsin. We had 5” of snow on Halloween! So we are happy to be on our way. We would have been gone earlier but had to wait to meet with our health insurance agent so I could sign up for health care. Tuesday morning we spent about an 1 hour winterizing the house and were on the road by 8:00.

We drove 342 miles today arriving at Kickapoo State Recreation Area around 2:00. This park is located about 30 miles east of Champaign Illinois. It is a large park on the site of an old surface mining operation. It is 2842 acres with lots of outdoor recreation. The campground is open all year.

This is the first stop on our winter travels. We have reservations at a RV Resort in Yuma for February and March but we are taking the long scenic route to get there. From Wisconsin we are heading toward Nashville to get on the Natchez Trace Parkway. This is a 444 miles long National Park Road that meanders across Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. Once we reach Natchez we will drop down to New Orleans to spend a few days there. We will be spending Thanksgiving near Galveston then leaving on a one week cruise. After the cruise the plan is to keep moving south to check out San Padre Island and the Rio Grande Valley area then meander west. We want to be in Benson Az. the end of December to meet up with all our friends at Saguaro SKP Park and attend the annual Polar Bear Party. Then on to Quartzsite and ultimately Yuma.

Wednesday – 11/6/2019 – Another pretty pleasant day of driving. We drove a few miles east on 74 then turned south onto Highways 63 and 41. This is nice four lane divided highway that ends up at the southern Indiana border. Some stop and go lights near towns and driving through Terre Haute is kind of a pain but otherwise pretty stress free.

We arrived at Eagles Rest and Fletcher's Fork RV Park around 3:00. This is a military RV park which is part of Fort Campbell however they allow non-military guests as well. The day we arrived it was kind of noisy has there were folks skeet shooting at the adjacent shooting range and army helicopters buzzing over every 15 to 20 minutes. The helicopters were still flying after dark and every time they flew over we lost television signal!

Thursday – 11/7/2019 – Woke up to rain this morning so we decided to take a break from driving and explore the area. We checked out the visitor center at nearby Clarksville to see what might be interesting to visit in the area. Clarksville is located where the Red River flows into the Cumberland River so was a great place for a fort during the Civil War. Fort Defiance Civil War Park and Interpretive Center is a nice museum located at the site of the old fort. We watched a short video, strolled through the museum and spent some time talking to the museum assistants.

We also visited and took a tour of Old Glory Distillery. This distillery is only 4 years old and was started by two brothers that wanted to do something besides sit behind a desk. With the help of their father they built the distillery building and began to produce various spirits.

Where we are parked: Kickapoo State Recreation Area – Oakwood, Illinois – Site 91 – 184 sites- The gravel sites are nicely spaced with about half the sites with electrical hookups. $20 per night.

Where we are parked: Eagles Rest and Fletcher's Fork RV Park – Fort Campbell,TN – Site 14 - 42 full hookup sites, at least 20 of them are pull-thru. This is a military park however allow non-military guests as well. $25 per night/$23 with Golden Age Pass.