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!!
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!!
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