Kitchen Remodel: Short Shrift on Cabinets

Now with all the old torn out from the old kitchen, we are step by step building back a new kitchen environment, seemly done.

New tile floor laid wall to wall - step one.  It sure looks good to me, especially after the beat old linoleum has bee erased from my mind's eye.
Walls and ceiling stripped down to sheet rock and drywall torn our where the old pantry closet  once stood - step two.
Relocated plumbing for new sink position and rewire for new electrical outlet placement - step three.
New drywall replaced over the holes and walls and ceiling textured - Step four.

All of this is proceeding as planned, ahead of schedule even.  This is too good, surely this can't last to the end?

Of course not...

Demolition Phase finished.
Drywall repair and texture to make
a new kitchen environment

The custom-built cabinets have been sitting in the garage, waiting for the proper sequence in the process of installing all of the pieces before they are to be installed.  They day has arrived, and it is a Saturday.  The crew is here at 8:30 AM.  The cabinets that sit on the floor have been examined and found to all be undamaged and are ready to be installed.  Measure twice, cut once they say.  A check of the floor plans and each piece of cabinetry is brought in from the garage and installed solidly to the wall.  Then it is time to hang the overhead cabinets, however, some arrived damaged and have been reordered.  Those that have arrived unmarred are measured and the mounting plans are consulted once again.  Hmmmm....

The contractor is confused and puzzled.  This is not going to be good.  He cannot figure out how and why the new cabinets do match the expected dimensions.  He shakes his head and consults with the crew.  He comes back inside and motions for me to come into the kitchen.  He begins to explain; "You have a 33" cabinet sitting here in the floor next to the dishwasher, but the cabinet above it, over the counter top is only 30".  So the design calls for a 3" 'filler board' to cover the 3" gap. The cabinet above should line up to be the same dimension as the one below." 
"What do you think about that?" 
I tell him I do not like it, I thought I had paid for a full length set of cabinets above and below the counter top.  
"Good", he tells me, even if you wanted to go ahead with this installation, I'd try and talk you out of it - this kind of install work does not reflect well on me.

Cabinet Installation (Partial)

Those cabinets that arrived undamaged are mounted on the tile floor and against the wall.
Counter top templates can be made once the lower cabinets are installed. Progress.

Partial installation of the upper set of cabinets

We will reorder a third set of cabinets to fit the proper dimensions.  At first we are told the four 3" filler boards that were planned for our kitchen were a 'cost-saving measure'.  What?  We agreed on a cost and nobody said anything about selling us short shrift on the upper cabinets to save costs, cost that were established before the plans were drawn up.  True.  Actually the computer design program ran four 3" spacers around the kitchen after the design tech mistakenly entered in 30" instead of 33".  Put garbage in and the computer compensated with garbage out. 

Some of the cabinets onsite in our garage actually do fit properly, so those are installed - step 4 1/2.  We wait for another few weeks before the third set arrives.

Color goes on the wall while Sue is out of town running church camp for the weekend.
The color selection and painting are all my decision - but she approves once she returns

Meanwhile, I put up the painters tape, go toe the store and select a handful of color swatches and test them out.  I select "Paris Mist", what i feel, is soothing, cool and placid green for an east-facing [hot Texas Sun] room.  The Paris Mist walls will be accented with bright white baseboards, door frame and the vaulted ceiling in the Breakfast Nook.  I like picking colors and applying them to the walls - step 5.  This is starting to look like a nice room to be in some day in the future.

Kitchen Remodel: Behold, All Things Become New

That giant sucking sound was the removal of our former beat down cabinetry, worn out flooring and out-dated wallpaper, all given the heave-ho. Those bad vibes have been tossed out and that sucking sound as they went out was music to our ears, as the now emptied kitchen space was literally echoing as we spoke inside the void of our former kitchen.  The old cabinets were piled in garage, as I intend to install them on the garage walls for additional storage.  The kitchen walls, now laid bare by the stripping of the wall paper and the electrical outlets were rearranged and new dry wall was installed and textured where needed.  And as we lift up our eyes we notice the wretched stained 'popcorn' ceiling texture has been removed as well.  This is Easter!  Behold, All things become new. 

The old kitchen laid bare
New things are coming. It will be so good.

With the prep work done from floor to ceiling, the floor tile guy came through the lockbox hung from our front door and went to work while we were away at our own jobs.    We came back home in the evening to see the freshly laid tiles cordoned off by tape - No walking on the new kitchen tiles just yet!  It was good to see some solid fresh flooring with some bold color. It was grand to see the transformation beginning.

Kitchen tiles laid while we were away.
A welcome sight upon our evening arrival home.

Our new "Precambrian Slate Stone" tile flooring, replacing ghastly linoleum.

Once the new floor was set and grouted, the next set of workmen arrived to do rough plumbing and put in new dry wall where needed after the pantry closet walls had been removed.

Plumbers and dry wall craftsman show up at 8 AM to do their work
on our new kitchen.  Sink  and refrigerator locations are being shifted.

Once all of the new cabinets had been delivered, they were inspected, with a fair number of them found to be chipped, scratched and otherwise damaged.  Those rejects were then reordered.  This put off the completion schedule for a couple more weeks.  But all of the cabinets that were to be installed on the floor were in fine conditions, so next step, installation of some of the cabinets next Saturday. 

Pride of The Artichoke

A Heart full of Pride
The culmination of a year's cultivation
The Artichoke Heart fills the Gardner with Great Pride

Down to earth.  That's my girl.  She is so happy with the fruit of her labors these days, and after a year of nurturing the large green child in the middle of her garden plot, this child of the thistle family has turned out to be a good seed after all.   Sue positively beamed with pride and joy as the first artichoke was harvested - with the excited pronouncement that there are a half-dozen more tasty fruits to follow... at least.

She now fully expects that she will be able to make a fortune growing globe artichokes on the banks of the Pilchuck Creek once we can retire and move out to Washington and grow organic 'chokes.  "If I can do it in steamy Texas with this hard-scrabble clay soil, I can do it on our farm!", she reasons.  

 ...and we will raise goats, and I will make cheese, and we will have an orchard again with apples, plums and cherries, and then we will put in a big row of blue berries and raspberries and to supplement our retirement we will grow a variety of herbs to sell...

I think of the old proverb; 'A single artichoke does not a farmer make'.  But why spoil the dream and no sense in arguing with her success with her artichoke.  We will enjoy this baby with a dipping sauce of butter and garlic.

Not to rest on her laurels [or in this case, artichoke leaves], she has planted all manner of goodness.  Her okra plants each have a friend's name attached to them, the okra harvest is to be amply shared with them that loves the okra.  I tell her, share all she wants, as I will do fine with the very little that is left over for me this summer.

Spotted Cucumber Beetles
Invite themselves to be a part of the vegetable feast

Coriander blossoms attract pollinators
and will season our soups this autumn

The coriander is in full bloom and she feels bad about pulling out any of her plants that are doing so well, but additional space and light must be made for the up-and-coming vegetables and herbs.  The onions and ready to be pulled up and hung up in bunches to dry along with the coriander and garlic.  

Sue's garden beckons of the mild days of Winter and Spring
Steamy Summers make it a bit more of a chore to weed and grow 

Get Thee Behind Me Oh Hellish Kitchen

The scales have fallen from my eyes, I can see how far we have sunk.  Oh, to be sure it was a gradual descent, and there were certainly plenty of good times; baking birthday cakes, mixing up cookie dough with the kids when they were so small that they had to stand upon chairs to reach the counter top and dip their fingers into the bowl of raw cookie goodness.  Yes, the peach harvest processed in the kitchen and the making of elementary school science projects like the baking powder/vinegar volcano - good fun and good times all.  

But time does change things.  And the years had not been kind to the builder grade, linoeum floor, particle board and contact paper cabinets and honestly, have we had enough of those industrial fluorescent lights and popcorn ceilings?  The answer is yeas - yes we have.  Or maybe more like, "Aaack Kack Kack - I can't live like this anymore!"  It was time somebody did something.

All Hell below the kitchen sink

 The plumbing put in by the builder was slipshod and was never done right. Over the years I've applied electrical tape and putty to staunch the foul spewage that came from ill-fitted PVC pipes.  As a last resort I had long ago stationed buckets and catchment mats to hold the wayward gray water.  It was time to make this hell hole go away.



The linoleum had creased with the shifting slab, raising ridges in the flooring, only to be be eroded by foot traffic, leaving a hole in the linoleum and exposing the cement slab below.  Awful, just awful.

The Old Hellish Kitchen
After 28 Years of Wear & Tear

 Time for a change.  Once we started thinking about the possibilities, we realized how bad thing really were in the kitchen.  We began to cruise the home improvement circuit, kitchen & bath remodel places.  We decided on a new color scheme, found some tile flooring we found attractive and explored counter top and cabinet options and perhaps a new ceiling treatment.  Then it was time to think about a budget.  What a bummer to have to use real money to pay for all of this desired change.

Clearing the kitchen for demolition
The worn floor is an eye-sore

My original plan of piece by piece, start with the ceiling, spend some money.  Then I would take on the floor DIY.  We could later have some new cabinets installed.  We soon got talked into the necessity of doing the whole project at once; starting with tearing out everything, then doing the floor.  Followed by plumbing and electrical and then installation of some good cabinets after all of the above had been done.  I admit that order of business did make sense.  However, I could and would do the painting and save significant dollars on that end.  We inked the deal.

We originally wanted hickory cabinets, but when we got back to the store a couple weeks later, the hickory was discontinued.  But there was a good sale on what remaind in stock, so we pondered and decided upon the maple wood.

Eager to lift ourselves out of the the hellish kitchen, Sue was chomping at the bit to pack up the culinary accouterments and get the deck cleared for the impending demolition.  The upstairs bedrooms made handy storage space and were quickly filled while we crammed the few items reserved for dining, plates, silverware and some basic bowls, into the now cramped dining room.  We would be eating out a lot more and using the backyard grill frequently once the oven was disconnected.

The shelves are emptied and the appliance stowed upstairs

 As a part of the process, much of what we discovered in our drawers and far away recesses of the upper shelves where found to not be of use or needed any longer.  A pile for the Goodwill Store was growing by the minute.

From here on out, things will be different she swore as she tossed another plastic goo-gaw onto the 'good riddance' pile.

Our garage is filled with new kitchen cabinets, tiles, shelves and drawers
awaiting installation in the coming weeks/months (?)

Enough material was delivered to fill up our garage and force our cars out onto the street and driveway.  But something new and different and a big improvement was on the horizon.  Now we wait for the contractors to schedule time to tear everything out, replumb and rewire and prep the walls, floor and ceiling for glorious new kitchen.  We have made the decision and we will no longer live in ignominious degraded hellish kitchen conditions.  Get thee behind me, thou art but rubbish destined for destruction.  We are on the road to glory.

A New Plan

With the devastating phone call late on Halloween Night, 2016; first from our property manager calling from the Arlington fire station and then a following call from the Snohomish County Fire Marshal from the scene - our house, the one Sue and all of her family grew up in - is burned out by an arsonist.  I asked the Fire Marshal if it was total lost? He said if it wasn't, it was pretty close.  Insurance adjuster later confirmed it was a total loss.

Our next steps toward recovery and deciding the future have been tenuous and discussed around the dinner table.  The option of taking the insurance ACV (actual cash value) which accounted for depreciation on the 56-year old structure made that decision pretty simple.  We would leave too much money on the table to walk away at this point and have only a vacant 50 acre lot on the Pilchuck Creek.  No, we would rebuild. 

Architect's elevation concept of our rebuilt house

 Our property manager did some searching and put out a feeler to see if any architects in the area were interested in taking on a design and rebuild project upon the original foundation of a house in the woods.

We got a couple of suggestions, and after checking the references for a Seattle-based architect, we paid him a retainer and I explained my new concept of what I had hoped to build back on the original foundation.  Our general contractor said to plan on $150/sq. ft for construction costs, and my original designs were far beyond the budget we had coming from the insurance settlement to replace the house.  Our architect, took my concept sketches and politely suggested that "a lot of people to not realize that up to 35% of interior space can be wasted with inefficient design."  He then tightened up my floor plan and eliminated my master bedroom and second floor loft as outside the scope of my construction budget.  After several iterations we had a new floor plan that we would enjoy and come close to affording.

For those familiar with the original Cook home, the new plan calls for placing the kitchen and a lot of windows on the south side of the house, looking off toward the orchard.  The kitchen will flow into a dining room with a wood burning stove, on the front of the house a large circular window will look east toward the front yard and garden area. One day we hope to have a deck that opens out from the dining room to the south.  

Sue really wants a fireplace, and we have placed designed the hearth to sit at a 45-degree angle in the corner of the front (east-facing) wall in the living room in the center of the house.  An office will be located at the northeast corner where the kitchen used to be.  We will have access to the basement from two first-floor locations, the first through the large kitchen pantry and the other along the north wall descending down a staircase across from the utility room (which will remain in the original location).

There will be a bathroom with tub and shower off of the living room and a second upstairs bathroom for the First Bedroom (for now, the Master Bedroom).  As before, the bedrooms will be at the back of the house, windows with a view to the west.  We are planning for now to have only two bedrooms upstairs. 

Depending upon budget and extra funds available, we hope to have at least one bedroom in the basement with its own bathroom and sheltered parking built on the north side, where vehicles have always been parked.

If we become rich enough to match our ambitions, we would like to add a real master bedroom over a 2-car garage built into the side of the hill at the back of the house, off of the newly planned kitchen.

The new floor plan concept sketch is shown below.  We will be expanding the first floor footprint, up from about 1385 square feet to 1600 square feet with the kitchen/dining room wall being pushed further to the south and an extension of the former kitchen wall to create a bit more space for the planned office. 

Final iteration of sketch of our vision for the new floor plan

 We are now awaiting technical drawing from the architect and the permitting process.  We have hopes of having the place ready by the end of October.  

I am disappointed that we expect to have to rent the place out once again to defray expenses.  But, at some point it would be great to move in ourselves, as we have long intended.

M-I-SS-I-SS-I-PP-I, A Spring Pilgramage

In the not-so very cold and dark of New Year's Day 2017, a plan was hatched.  While celebrating with long-time friends over the New Year holiday at the McCord's place in East Texas, Donna McCord said, "I need to just get away somewhere!"  I said, how about a springtime trip to Natchez, Mississippi?

Donna grinned and said, "Oh yeah - I just need to get away somewhere."  Over the next month or so, we slowly put together some ideas and some priorities (in no particular order) for travel amongst the McCords and the Sunesons.  

Priority 1.  Kirby (and I might add myself to a just a little lesser extent) has a keen interest in the American Civil War.  So we added a stop at Vicksburg National Military Park, site of General Ulysses S. Grant's siege of the key city of Vicksburg that controlled the Mississippi River and linked the western half of the Confederacy to the eastern half.  Of course, Grant was victorious, the Confederacy was then split and the rest is history; that is history on display by the National Park Service at the former battlefield.

Priority 2.  Sue, spoke up and expressed a strong desire to include some of the battle sites (if possible) where federal and rebel armies fought in the days preceding the battle at Vicksburg, and this request was personal.  Lewis Maris, Sue's Great Great Grandfather was a lieutenant with the 3rd Missouri Cavalry (CSA) and was captured at the Battle of The Big Black River Bridge (May 17, 1863) or at the Battle of Champion Hill (May 16, 1863) - the records differ on this point, though the battlefields are separated by only about 12 miles and less than 24 hours.  After years of off-and-on Ancestry.com research on Lewis Maris and his story, it was time to tread the very ground where upon her ancestor once fought and was eventually captured and spent the remainder of the war as a POW in a camp in Ohio.

Priority 3. Drive the Natchez Trace, a historic (even prehistoric) travel route used by American Indians traveling from what is now Tennesse to the Great River known to them as Homochito, and to us as the Mighty Mississip.  The Natchez Trace is a laconic two-lane road maintained by the National Park Service due to its historic nature and use up through the mid-19th century by early American travelers, including Meriwether Lewis (who died on the Trace).

Priority 4.  Enjoy a couple of day in Natchez, MS; an interesting city filled with antebellum mansions and and a host of hsitorical sites and a variety of eateries and other pleasantries on the banks of the Mississippi River.

I will chronicle our travels with the McCords in following pages of this blog, broken out by some of the aspects enjoyed over 3-days in March.  As third graders we displayed our precociousness by competing to see who could rip off the tongue the correct spelling of Mississippi the fastess.  Here we go in 0.76 seconds: M-I-SS-I-SS-I-PP-I!!

Spring Travels: Vicksburg Battlefield

Now the Father of Waters goes unvexed to the sea.

-Abraham Lincoln

The fortified bluffs above the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, MS gave the Confederacy control over this vital commercial and military waterway.  Lincoln knew that to have the US again in control of the river meant that the Confederacy would be divided and and then conquered.  It was General Grant's job to take the high ground at Vicksburg from rebel control and preserve the Union.  

A big part of American History is to be found and explored at the National Military Park at the site of the battle and siege that led to the surrender of Vicksburg and elicited President's thankful quote regarding unvexing the Father of Waters.  I like history. I like honor being shown to those who have displayed bravery and ingenuity.  I love road trips.  I love the experience of pulling so many pleasant elements together.  So the Sunesons and our good friends the McCords, traveled to Mississippi for fun in late March.

We joined the McCords for dinner at their "Blue House" home in the Piney Woods of east Texas on a Tuesday night.  We would be up an out the door in the morning making for Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Unlike Gen. Grant, who risked the destruction of his entire army as he boldly maneuvered 38,000 troops across the Mississippi, telling his commanders that they would have to make due with only the food they carried since they would be cut off from their supply lines; we googled our options for a place to eat lunch once in Vicksburg.  We chose The Gumbo Pot, a good place for fried shrimp special and gumbo. 

Once fed, we had the will to forward march to the battle site for the remainder of the afternoon.

Sue checked with the ranger to see if they had any information on those who fought there, and was rewarded with a print out with some details about her Great Great Grandfather, Lewis Maris.  He was actually captured just before he could get into Vicksburg's defenses.

We drove through the arch at the entrance to the battlefield, tracing the Union lines that were in place in May of 1863.

 Artillery used in the battle was lined up in an impressive display in front of the visitor's center.

DeGueyer's Battery was dug in and pounded the rebel positions around Vicksburg for 34 days before the town was surrenedered by General Pemberton.

The monument and rotunda build by the state of Illinois looms large over the battlefield.  Illinois provided many of the Federal troops than manned the siege lines and of course Illinois is the proud home of the victorious General Grant as well as Mr. Lincoln.

Kirby was able to find the name of his ancestor, John P. McCord, cast in bronze, and listed among the Illinois cavalry and all who served from that state in Grant's campaign. 

Kirby points to the name of one of his ancestors who served in the 5th Illinois cavalry at Vicksburg

Mark at the site of the Louisiana redan, a defensive position that guarded the Jackson Road into Vicksburg

Wisconsin memorial at Vicksburg

I would say the most impressive tribute at the Vicksburg battlefield is the remains of the great Union ironclad gun boat, the USS Cairo, raised the the bottom of the river in 1963, 100 years after she was sunk by a rebel mine.  The reconstructed structure of this impressive new battleship clad in thick iron plates, impervious to cannon fire was on display near to original townsite of Vickburg.

The bow of the USS Cairo
Armed to the teeth with cannon and covered in iron plates above the waterline.
She was sunk by a mine deployed by the rebels that detonated underneath her keel.

Donna looks out from one of the gun ports on the USS Cairo

We were at the Cairo Museum when the hour struck 5 O'clock, which means it was closing time for the battlefield.  We were not quite done with our tour, so we vowed to return in the morning to finish the drive through the historic site.

In the morning we had on our list of 'must see' items, the location of the Texas brigade that stopped the breach in the Confederate line and fought hard and proud.   At the Texas memorial where a bronze Texan stood with his shirt spread open and his chest hairs cast in bronze were proudly displayed, Kirby (a native Texan) remarked; "I am sorry to admit, but the Texas memorial has got to be the tackiest site on the battlefield."  Many in our small party thought the the representative Texian soldier bore a close resemblence to Matthew McConaughey - and it was not just that he was portrayed sans shirt.

Sue and Mark at the 2nd Texas redoubt

Texas Memorial

Can I still be an honorary Texan  even if I do not have a chest full of bronze hair?

With General U.S. Grant accepting the surrender of Vickburg on July 4, 1863, the rebel cause was inevitably lost.  We headed back to the visitor's center to get directions to a place found only by following two-lane country roads that is not marked by any bronze plaques, but a place that looks large in the family history.  Next stop - if we can find it, the site of the Battle at Big Black River Bridge.

Spring Travels: The Hinge of Family History

At the the Vicksburg visitor's center I consulted with a knowledgeable Park Service employee, and asked her about locating the sites of the two battlefields where General Grant fought the rebels forces, over-running them and forcing them to retreat into their defensive perimeter around the town of Vicksburg.  The two sites of keen interest for us were the Battle of the Big Black River Bridge and Champion Hill.  In Sue's genealogy research, Lt. Lewis Maris of the 3rd Missouri Cavalry (CSA) was captured either at one of these two battles, separated by less than 24 hours and about 12 miles.  With a hand-drawn map on the back of a government publication showing bifurcating county roads and single-lane back country routes, we headed east to while history unfolded before our eyes.

If Great Great Grandfather Lt. Maris would have been killed in the fighting, there would be no Great Grandmother Rosa Sophia Maris Woodcock and then no Grandmother Lucile Woodcock Mott which would have precluded the existence of Dr. Helen Mott, her own mother.  All of family history as we know it hinged upon the fate of Lewis Maris on May 17, 1863.  Would the cavalry lieutenant be killed in action, would he retreat with his comrades to Vicksburg and be in harm's way during more fighting and then only to endure the Union shelling during the 34 day siege, possibly killed?  Or would his fate be to be removed from the fighting and bloodshed to survive, preserving his memory and his seed far into a distant and unforeseeable future following the Civil War?  

There is something primal about standing on the very ground, made hallow by utmost devotion and bloodshed from those who came before, and gazing back 154 years in contemplation of the web of events, coincidence, luck and fateful decisions that bring us back up through a tortuous history of twist and turns to the point where a great great grand daughter could return and stand at the spot where all the hopes, dreams and trials of four succeeding generations all hinged.  Standing beneath the railroad trestle crossing the Big Black River, an ordinary looking brushy river bank of no beauty, yet we felt small before the immense tide of human history and time that we feebly recognized had passed before our arrival.  Who among those who fought here in 1863 could have imagined, much less dreamed, of what future generations would see and accomplish after them?  

Sue stands before the remains of the railroad bridge over the Big Black River,
Site of the battle where Great Great Grandfather Lt. Lewis Maris was captured, May 17, 1863

 Sue, looking over these photos said she was reminded of the plot of the movie, Back to the Future, where the main character Marty McFly has a photograph of him and his family where he fades from the photo as events in the past are altered to conspire to keep his parents from meeting, thus precluding his existence in the future.  Sue felt that if some little thing, say, such as a Union artillery shell, landed somewhere else on the day in May, 1863, she would not exist.

The fact that I have a full, non-faded photo of my wife, proves that Lt. Lewis Maris did survive the Civil War.  As General Pemberton retreated to the stronghold of Vicksburg, he left three brigades to defend his rear on the east side of the Big Black River.  After defeating the confederates at Champion Hill, they next encountered Pemberton's rear guard east of the Big Black River.  Once again as the rebel positions were overrun, the rebels pulled back across the river and the order was given to torch the railroad trestle to slow down the Union advance.  The wooden bridge had turpentine soaked cotton bales tied to its structure in anticipation of needing to destroy it prevent Grant's army from using it to pursue the enemy, however, as fate would have it, the bridge and three steam boats used as another bridge were destroyed before all of the confederate forces were able to make it to the west side of the river.  Reports of many confederate soldiers being drowned as they tried to swim the Big Black in flood stage, and the record show another 1,700 rebel soldiers captured. One of the 1,700 was Lt. Lewis Maris, 3rd Missouri Cavalry, Co. D.  Lt. Maris would be a POW imprisoned on Johnston Island in Ohio for the remainder of the war.  

Released in February 1865, Lewis would return to Savanna, Missouri where he would farm on the Platte River and and raise a family with his wife.  Growing crops, raising livestock, taking a wife and nurturing a family, all the mundane daily endeavors of an ordinary life; but from our vantage on the sandy banks of the Big Black River looking back four generations, it could easily have never been so ordinary.  We are feeling... what - fortunate? Insignificant? Blessed? Responsible for the coming generations?  It is a place of feeling, but which one is dominant or true.  Like the future, it is undecided.

Now we are feeling a little hungry, how about an ordinary lunch in Raymond?  We all agree on that.

A descendant of Lt. Lewis Maris surrenders to her emotions
Modern railroad trestle over the Big Black River

   

Mark at the strategic cross roads of Champion Hill
where General Grant gained access to the road to
his military objective, Vicksburg.

We four wended our way through small rural lanes, past burned out single-wide mobile homes and hound dogs resting in the shade of pine trees for another 12 miles to get to Champion Hill, the site of a battle that preceded the one a Big Black River Bridge.  Champion Hill is still own by the Champion family, and is prominently marked as private land, no trespassing.  While seeking direction at Vicksburg, we were told to respect the private property rights, and we agreed and we did.  However, there is a sign dedicated to the carnage on the shoulder of the road and so we stopped to read of the ferocious fighting were men stood nearly toe-to-toe for hours firing into one another's face, as it was described by a Union officer.  





By circuitous route we found ourselves at the southern edge of the battle line at the Coker House, a structure used by both sides as a field hospital.  Where large camellia bushes and wisteria now stand, there once was piled amputated arms and legs of the stricken soldiers being treated inside the walls while under artillery fire.  Trying to place today's flowering countryside next to images of detached limbs and the moans of the dying rattles and warps the imagination.

Sue sits on the porch of the Coker House.
The landscape now a picture of tranquility, but
once a site of carnage and hostility.

The Coker House subjected to artillery bombardment
and used as a field hospital by first the
Confederates, and then by the Union.

Sue and Donna admire the camellias beside the Coker House.

The sweet smell of wisteria blooms near where once amputated arms and legs of
wounded combatants were piled.

Camellia at peace in a place of a violent past

Spring Travels: The Natchez Trace

The Old Natchez Trace, a forest trail that leads from Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi connected the American interior to the Mississippi River and was of historic and vital route in the early days of the American frontier.  In fact, if you walk far enough back on the Old Trace, you will probably find it being used in 700 AD by prehistoric peoples, including the mound building tribes like the Natchez Indians.  Today, the Natchez Trace is maintained by the US Park Service along it 444 miles of idyllic two-lane, slow-paced travel through verdant woodlands.  

Traveling with the McCords in our 4Runner, we caught the Natchez Trace in Raymond, Mississippi about 75 north of Natchez, MS.  The idea was to cruise in our vehicle the now paved path that has been traveled by foot and horseback by the likes of Meriwether Lewis, Andrew Jackson, Spanish explores, French soldiers, pirates, frontiersmen, traders, scalawags, boatmen, all precede in previous millennia by the earliest of peoples on the North American continent.  We are walking in all of their footsteps, but instead of walking we are motoring at 50 mile per hour.  Our plan is to at any place of interest along The Trace and explore, ending up in the evening at The Routhland, a antebellum mansion B&B in Natchez.

Remnant of the Old Natchez Trace forest trail traveled by Indians, frontiersmen, Spanish, French and American explorers traders and soldiers.  Yes, they trod upon this very place on their way to the Mississippi River - just as we were doing.

The sign in the side of the road directed us toward a sidetrack where the actual pathway, worn into Mississippi soil from countless footsteps of travelers making there way to the Mississippi River.  This ground has seen the passing of members of a mound-building civilization (perhaps dating back to around 700 AD), Andrew Jackson to fight the British at New Orleans, Spanish explorers and French priests among thousand of others from the pages of history.  We stopped to walk the Trace ourselves.  Donna could not resist taking off her Trace-walking shoes and wading in the the small, clear creek beside the Trace.

Our traveling companion on the Old Trace, Donna McCord takes a trip through a brook
flowing beside the historic Natchez Trace. 

Sunlight through a springtime leaves along the Natchez Trac

 A little further down the Trace we come upon Rocky Springs ghost town.  A settlement boasting of 3 churches, artisans, stores and 25 square miles of farms tended by 2,000 slaves.  Rocky Springs thrived along the Natchez Trace from the 1780's into the early 20th Century, but a devastating infestation of boll weevils destroyed the economy and today all that is left is a Methodist Church and its graveyard, a few cisterns and several safes (long ago cracked open) rusting in the woods. 

Tree roots fight erosion at Rocky Springs ghost town

Spanish moss drapes from trees
surrounding an old Methodist Church

Rocky Springs Methodist meet still meet here on occasion.

Rocky Springs boneyard under spanish moss 

It is getting toward dusk and we need to check in to our B&B suite at the Routhland Mansion in Natchez before our hostess goes to her bridge party.  We leave the ghosts of Rocky Springs behind, but we are assured there will be more ghost awaiting us in Natchez as we scurry down the Trace like so many others before us.