NATCHEZ TRACE PARKWAY
The Natchez Trace Parkway is a two-lane road, very similar to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, running southwest 444 miles from Nashville, TN to Natchez, MS. It was used as a travel corridor by many different people for hundreds of years. Today, there are hiking trails, bike trails and historic sites along its route. Like the Blue Ridge Parkway, no commercial vehicles are permitted, entrances, exits and pullouts are limited along with limited services such as gas stations and restrooms. This made our 60-mile scenic drive southwest from Ross R. Barnett Reservoir towards Natchez relaxing and slower paced but it could be stressful if you don’t plan your gas and restroom stops. We recommend getting the National Park Service map.
Views along the Natchez Trace Parkway from just north of Jackson, MS to just south of Jackson, MS.
VICKSBURG NATIONAL MILITARY PARK, Vicksburg, MS
Neither of us are history buffs. We knew Vicksburg was the site of a major Civil War battle, nothing else. As we drove from Biloxi, MS towards Vicksburg, MS, the terrain went from pancake flat to rolling hills to hilly bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. The battle was about controlling access to the Mississippi River for supplies and troops!
There is a 10.35 mile auto/bike/walking tour through the park with stops. The Confederate army (represented with RED signs) had control of the river and the Union army (represented with BLUE signs) was trying to gain control of it. The tour begins on lower ground in Union territory with BLUE plaques and monuments honoring various units. As you get closer to the top of the bluff, you enter Confederate territory and see RED plaques and monuments honoring the Confederate units. Many states are represented on both sides, and we were both a little surprised how many Union units were from Illinois. Looking out across the hills and fields, from the Union or Confederate vantage point, you can see the enemy represented by their different colored signs.
The U.S.S. Cairo, the only remaining iron-clad ship in existence, is on display in this park along with a small museum containing artifacts recovered from this ship.
Top center: Position held by a Confederate artillery unit from Mississippi.
Top right: The U.S.S. Cairo Iron Clad ship
Middle left: Terry approaching the tunnel dug through a ridge by Union troops to avoid being hit climbing over the ridge (Thayer's Approach)
Bottom: Peggy stopping at Tour Stop 1 on the Union side.
POVERTY POINT NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
Wow, this is an amazing site! It’s a World Heritage Site. We are camped at the campground in the state park with the same name, waiting out 5 days of rain storms. There was a break in the rain so we decided to check this out. It’s Indian mounds BUT these are really special! They are really, really old – 1700 to 1100 BC old and the artifacts they’ve found are more advanced than what they expect a hunter-gatherer people to produce. It is a bit mind-boggling that a civilization stayed in this one place for longer than Europeans and their descendants have been in the Americas.
There are 6 large mounds that are thought to have been ceremonial and we were able to walk up to the top of highest mound, about 70 feet tall. The impressive central construction consists of six rows of concentric ridges that form a C-shape. The diameter of the outermost ridge measures nearly three-quarters of a mile. It is thought that these ridges served as foundations for dwellings. The opening of the C faced a large open plaza area and overlooked the Mississippi River floodplain.
Because there is no local stone in this area, Poverty Point's inhabitants seem to have evolved a huge trading network because spear points and other stone tools found at Poverty Point were made from raw materials which originated pretty much all over the eastern parts of the US (see the green map picture). There are literally thousands of pieces of stone items, everything from spear points to cooking stones to small red jasper beads, in their museum.
Top row: A summary, a diagram of the site with the mounds and the ridges, all the different sites where stone was obtained and us in front of Mound A that we walked up.
Middle row: The remains of 6 ridges and a view of Mound A from the ridges.
Bottom row: Mound A from the field surrounding it.
WAITING FOR THE STORMS TO PASS
We are staying at this campground to ride out a series of rainstorms coming across the south in the next 5 days. 5 days of rain, some severe. The brunt of the storms will hit where we are headed in northwest Louisiana and southwest Arkansas so we’re waiting for the storms to pass.
Our campsite after 5 days of rain.
Camping: Poverty Point State Park, Delhi, LA
Electricity, water, dump station, showers, WiFi