Month: March 2017

Vicksburg National Military Park

Vicksburg National Military Park

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Abraham Lincoln thought that Vicksburg was “the key” to winning the Civil War. The Vicksburg National Military Park has a 16 mile road that winds through some of the major battlegrounds of the Siege of Vicksburg.

One of the cool things that the NPS offers at these battlefields is an audio tour of the park. There are usually a few different ones to choose from. We always get the longest, most detailed one. This time the longest one was two and a half hours. It took us over five hours to complete the whole driving tour. We get out at each stop and look around. Talk about it. One of the times we stopped and got out to look around we found some hidden canons.

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Along with the audio tour we got this great little booklet. In the picture above you can see one of the stops. At this stop we learned about the Shirley House. This house was caught in the middle of a siege. The army dug a “honeycomb” of shelters all around the house during the battle. The house is still there today and so is the “honeycomb”. The shelters have all fallen down and been cleared away, but the land is still scarred from the battle.

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The Illinois Memorial was the biggest memorial we saw. So much thought goes into each Memorial. On the Illinois Memorial there are 47 steps that lead up to the entrance. One for each of the 47 days of the Siege of Vicksburg. Inside the Illinois Memorial was this gorgeous seal.

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We’ve been to several different battlefields, but this was the first time we found a tunnel!

We learned about the different types of artillery. You can see in the pic above that the opening isn’t smooth. It has notches. These notches are super important! They allow the artillery to go farther and with more accuracy.

I think, perhaps, our favorite stop on the tour was at the USS Cairo Museum where we learned about the Ironclad River Gunboats. On December 12, 1862, the USS Cairo became the very first armed warship to be sunk by a mine. They weren’t called mines at that point. They were called “torpedos” or “infernal machines”.

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 The NPS has restored bits of the Ironclad and installed walkways that allow you to really get inside and see the guts of the boat. The USS Cairo came equipped with 13 guns, including 3 large 64 pounder Navy smoothbores. Two and a half inch plate armor made of charcoal iron is what covered the mid section of the boat in order to protect the vital guts of the boat.

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There was a model in the museum to show what the USS Cairo looked like. The USS Cairo sank in 12 minutes, but no lives were lost.

I did find a few pretties. I don’t know what tree this was, but it had pretties all over it.

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We really enjoy the battlefields. We learn so much and it’s such a great way for the boys to really get an idea of what took place there. Instead of just reading about it in a book while sitting in a classroom, they get to walk around the grounds it took place. I didn’t go into extreme detail about each stop, but hopefully I’ve intrigued y’all enough to go visit the Vicksburg National Military Park!

See y’all down the road!

Pizza Roundup Pizza Inn

Pizza Roundup Pizza Inn

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To my fellow pizza lovers, I bring to you a post from Pizza Inn in Vicksburg, MS.

Pizza Inn is a mediocre pizza place with a pizza buffet.

The desserts are pretty good and the decor was ok and the bathrooms were clean.

When you order a pizza with no cheese you get lots and lots of sauce on it.

With all of that I think Pizza Inn gets a 3.5 star review.

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!!

A Parkway And More

A Parkway And More

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Hey Guys! 

We made it to Mississippi! We spent two very busy weeks in Vicksburg, MS! I’m going to be breaking our time here up into two separate posts.

The Natchez Trace Parkway is 444 miles long and snakes it’s way through three states. We didn’t get to explore all of it, but we got in around 122 miles of it!  I know, I know…how interesting could a parkway be? Well…pretty darn interesting when it’s sprinkled with historical stops! This natural travel corridor was used for centuries first by animals, then by Native Americans and then when people would catch rides on boats down the Mississippi River to sell their wares. They would then walk the travel corridor back home.

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The natural travel corridor that would become the Natchez Trace Parkway goes through the traditional homelands of the Natchez, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations. One of the stops on the NTP is called Emerald Mound. Emerald Mound is one of the largest mounds in our country. It stands 35 feet tall and is 770 feet by 435 feet at the base and covers 8 acres. There are two secondary mounds that sit on top of the primary mound making the total height come to 60 feet. Emerald Mound was used as a ceremonial center for the local people who lived in nearby villages, but abandoned the mound in the late 1600s.

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Mount Locust Inn and Plantation is one of the oldest structures still standing in the area. The Mount Locust story starts in 1780 and stretches all the way to 1944. The National Park Service started restoring it to it’s 1820 appearance in 1954.

 In the late 1700s boatmen (also known as Kaintucks) were taking their wares down the Mississippi River in their flatboats. At that point the best way to get home was to sell all their wares and the boat then walk back up the natural corridor that we know now as the Natchez Trace Parkway. Mount Locust is right about a day’s walk from Natchez. The travelers would ask the owners of Mount Locust for food and a place to stay for the night. Eventually, the family added on a separate, four room, two story building behind the main house.

We didn’t get to explore the all of Mount Locust due to some bad weather. We would like to eventually go back and see it all.

In the late 1700s and early 1800s the growing number of travelers on the corridor tramped down the rough trail into a clearly marked pathway. On some parts of the pathway where the ground was soft, the travelers wore down the trail and made the “sunken” sections you can see in the pic above.

We made it all the way to mile 122 and the Cypress Swamp! There’s a nice little boardwalk where you can walk right out over the swamp.

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Not far from where we stayed sat the remains of Windsor Plantation. Windsor was built between 1859 and 1861 and was the largest antebellum house in Mississippi at the time. The plantation once covered over 2,600 acres. It had wrought iron staircases and was four stories that housed 25 rooms, each with its own fireplace. The plantation was an important landmark along the Mississippi River. Mark Twain wrote about it in his book “Life on the Mississippi”. The Windsor Plantation survived the Civil War only to be burned to the ground by a party guest who was smoking in 1890.

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We also made it to the Mississippi SCB! Check out the gold coated copper eagle on the dome! It is 8 feet tall and 15 feet across!

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Check out the inside of that dome! *cue wondrous music* This is one of the best domes we’ve seen in a while! And…if that dome isn’t enough to wow you…check out the stained glass in the Senate Chamber. The pics not the best. We weren’t allowed down on the floor so I had to lean out and get the shot from the public gallery. Not to be out done by the Senate Chamber, the House Chamber has its own stained glass dome. We weren’t allowed on the floor again…so the pic is kind of weird, but you get the idea of how awesome the domes are.

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The Mississippi SCB has some very nice details. I love these light fixtures. Y’all know I have a thing for staircases…check out the wavy balustrade! You can also see some more stained glass at the top. We really enjoyed the Mississippi SCB!

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We had some spectacular sunsets while we were in MS!

Stay tuned for part two!

See y’all down the road

Montgomery, AL

Montgomery, AL

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Hey Guys! We spent almost a week in Montgomery, but the only thing we did was visit the SCB.

Montgomery became Alabama’s capital city in 1847. The building you see in the picture above dates back to 1850-51.

The current SCB replaced an earlier building that burned down. There’s a lot of history to be found in Montgomery. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to explore any of it.

The House and Senate Chambers in the SCB were both made into museums. We could walk into the room but not too far.

The dome was gorgeous! This pic doesn’t do it justice at all.

There are eight different 1920’s murals beneath the dome that illustrate Alabama’s history. It took three years to complete all eight murals.

In 1861, the Confederate States of America was born in the Alabama Senate Chamber when delegates from the Southern states voted to establish a new nation.

I have a thing for staircases. It started this past summer in the New York SCB. I’m not the best at getting the shot yet, but I’m working on it. I love to look at the staircases in each SCB. They’re all so different.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for you this time. We had a short week filled with everyday mundane things…school, cleaning, work.

See y’all down the road!

Pizza Roundup Pieology

Pizza Roundup Pieology

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To my fellow pizza lovers, I bring to you a post from Pieology in Montgomery, AL.

Pieology is a really tasty pizza place where you make your own pizza like what you do with sandwiches at Subway.

They have loads of tasty topping you can choose from and all the toppings are unlimited!

Yum!

The decor is good and the food comes out quickly.

Price was very reasonable…

The bathrooms are clean as well. All in all, I think Pieology deserves a 5 star review.

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!!