Short visit to Vicksburg, Ms

Since our motorhome refrigerator wasn't actually fixed in Red Bay, AL we had to schedule another repair down the road.  Bill has always wanted to see the Vicksburg Civil War battlefields so we had the refrigerator manufacturer send the part to an approved repairman in Vicksburg.  The plan was to arrive in Vicksburg on Thursday and have the weekend to see the sites and then have repairs done on Monday.  For once the plan went flawlessly.  We choose to stay at Ameristar RV park which has full hookups at a very reasonable price.  Ameristar is one of the largest Casino/Hotel operations on the Mississippi River.  We felt obliged to go to the dinner buffet at the casino on Friday late afternoon.  It was a bit pricey for us but the food was very good.

Ameristar Casino on Mississippi River in Vicksburg, MS



On Saturday morning we left early to visit the Civil War battlefield.  As some of you might know the siege/battle for Vicksburg began in the Fall of 1862.  The North believed Vicksburg was the key to defeating the South and the South had committed all resources to defending their hold on Vicksburg.  The city is situated on a bluff over looking the Mississippi River and as such the Southern forces had dug in along the ridge with a commanding view of the river.  With artillery emplacements on the ridge, the South controlled who could go up and down the river.  So when the Northern forces began their 1st attempt to take Vicksburg they wanted to transport troops down the Mississippi past Vicksburg so they could cutoff any attempt by the South to bring supplies up from Louisiana.

View from Southern Artillery emplacement along Mississippi River on South end of Vicksburg

Needless to say the South denied the North passage and the attack was thwarted.  Eventually, after many attempts to get Northern forces south of Vicksburg the Northern forces succeeded by shear will.  After numerous attacks by the North, all of which were repelled by the well entrenched South, the North took on a siege of Vicksburg and eventually the South surrendered Vicksburg on 4 July 1863.
  One of the most interesting things about the Vicksburg' 'battlefield' is that it is not some wide open battlefield in the middle of no where, but it is a diverse terrain all within the city itself.  The National Park Service has attempted to preserve this battlefield in honor to those who fought and died there.


One of the North's artillery emplacements pointing at the South's headquarters area





Each of the state monuments located in the battlefield is built where troops from those states were located during the battles and eventual siege.  As of July 2012, all the states which had troops in the battle have erected their monuments.  It is truly an impressive visit.  Here are just a few pictures of some of the monuments.


As I stated earlier, one aspect of this battle was naval.  In December of 1862 the northern gun boat USS Cairo hit a mine in the Yazoo river just north of Vicksburg and swiftly sank.  In 1956 the Cairo was found but not until 1965 was there an attempt to recover it.  The Cairo Museum at the Vicksburg battlefield documents the recovery as well as all the relics found.

Model of the USS Cairo
 

When the Cairo was hit by the mine there was time for all aboard to abandon ship without any loss of life.  The Cairo was quickly covered with mud, silt and sand and preserved contents of the ship just as they were in 1862.  While the ship itself decayed it is still quite impressive.

Bow of the USS Cairo

Stern with a small view of Paddle Wheel housing rear left

After a full day of site seeing we were ready for a good meal and a quite evening.  On Monday, the refrigerator repairman came with the new part which had arrived on schedule and finalized the repairs.  That finished our time in Vicksburg and we left on Tuesday heading for Dallas, TX.



Moving on

Well, its official, Corinth Recreation Area has closed for the winter.  On Saturday, just before closing, we decided we needed one more fire to enjoy the peace and quite which we have come to really enjoy.

We were able to winterize the campground and have everything ready for inspection by the afternoon of Monday, 3 Nov.   It has been a most enjoyable time at Corinth but now it is time to move on and face the world again.  The security of the routine can be alluring but we started this lifestyle so we would break routines and see the country. 
  Our first scheduled stop was just under 2 hours away in Red Bay, AL.  I don't know why it is called Red Bay, which brings up visions of being on a coast somewhere, but Red Bay is as far as you can get from the ocean and still be in Alabama.  We needed to stop here in Red Bay to get some warranty work done on our refrigerator and have them look at the dash heater blower which I was unable to fix.  After a couple of hours and a new relay we were back on the road headed for Whitten Park, which is a Corp of Engineer park on the Tom Bigbee tributary to the Tennessee River in Fulton, MS.

  After having just completed over 4 months as campground hosts it was hard not to 'judge' the campground.  Whitten is a nice place, just not as clean as we like.  Our plan is to stay here a couple nights and then move on. 
 
We decided to take a short trip over to Tupelo, MS on Wednesday 5 Nov to visit Elvis Presley's birth place.  It turned out to be really fun.

Steph outside Elvis's childhood home

Kitchen and Living area of 2 room house

Steph and Tour Guide talking

We spent a good deal of time in the actual home talking with the tour guide.  It turns out that she was a native of Tupelo and was about 3 yrs old when Elvis and his family lived in Tupelo.  The best part was when she was about 12 yrs old, Elvis had already become a mega star but he never forgot his roots in Tupelo.  Elvis was very generous and came back to Tupelo and donated money for many worthwhile causes as well as performing in the county fair as a service to the citizens.  The tour guide was able to spend time around Elvis during these times and had a wonderful perspective of him and just brought life to the tour.

  On Thursday,  6 Nov. we began our trip down to Vicksburg, MS via Natchez Trace parkway.  The parkway follows the original path between Natchez, Ms and an area just south of Nashville, TN used by Indians and traders in early America.  The portion we traveled was from Tupelo, MS to Jackson, MS, about 175mi.  While the road is very narrow it is not used very heavily this time of year and was very pretty.

Natchez Trace Parkway



Ross Barnett Reservoir along the parkway

We stayed for 1 night along the way at a pseudo state park along Barnett Reservoir near Jackson, MS and then we finished our trip on to Vicksburg, MS.  We'll have more on Vicksburg in our next post. 

Our Life at Corinth Recreation area

 

      Well, we are still here in Alabama!  Our time is drawing to a close here at the camp ground and we wanted to update everyone with what we have been doing.  I'll start off by saying that this has been a very pleasant experience with numerous blessings.  We have developed a close friendship with our coworkers here at Corinth.

No that is not one of them, that is one of the permanent residents.

Yeah, that's them!  Ovid and Peggy after church one Sunday morning.  These people have made being a coworker and Christian as much fun and as rewarding as you could ever imagine.  They have made us better people.  We will truly miss them.
  On a different note,  we had a trip down to Birmingham in early September looking for some clothes for Stephanie.  While there we ran across a Whole Foods Market' and decided to go in and grab a few things.  What to our wondering eyes should appear but a bin full of fresh 'Hatch Green Chile'.  The purpose of our trip suddenly shifted.  We started bagging green chiles like they were giving them away.  With a quick stop for Sushi lunch we were heading home to start roasting our little jewels.

After roasting and packing our chiles away and rearranging our freezer, we decided we could fit more chile in the freezer.  So, a week later, back to Birmingham for more chile shopping.  It has been fantastic to have a taste of home.  If were careful the chile might hold out till we get back to Las Cruces in December, but I doubt it.

 

We finally got to take the hike we had been planning across our camp ground.  The hike is only a total of just under 2 miles roundtrip and crosses from our camp ground loop over to the primitive camp area and then on to the old closed camp loop.  Along the way we were looking for the reported rock wall with the names of both Union and Confederate soldiers etched into it. 

Dogs taking a break near lake on our hike

View of lake 1/4 of the way into hike

 

We finally found the etching below in a small protected section of the rock wall.  I really don't know if this is legit or the results of some kids playing but it was interesting.  The actual names which were etched into the rock were in a less protected area of the wall and very worn and faded.

 



 

 As I wrote in a previous post, the camp ground was originally built in the 1940's and remained a small camp ground for many years.  The camp ground has been run by the US forest Service, Corp of Engineers, Cradle of Forestry and now a concessionaire.  About 10 years ago they closed the campground while they invested in installing full hook ups to every site.  In the process they closed the original camping and swimming areas and built 2 new camp loops and a new day use area with a large pavilion and swim beach.  They also built a nice boat ramp.  The lake, as I have said before, was constructed for the purpose of supplying the water necessary to power the hydroelectric plant.  As such, when we arrived here at Corinth, the water level was very high.  During the course of the summer and early fall, Alabama Power has been drawing the lake down to the point where we closed the swim area after Labor Day weekend. 

Swim beach extends out to the buoys leaving no room to swim



 We had a real Alabama Storm come through on Monday night 13 Oct. into Tuesday morning.  The weather service kept warning everyone about how powerful the storm could be and they were right.  While there were no tornados in our area we did sustain straight line winds which coupled with up to 6 inches of rain in some places caused quite a bit of debris on our roads and camp sites.  We also had 2 large trees fall over inside the camp loop and large tree branch snap out a tree next to the road.  We spent long hours on Tuesday and Wednesday trying to clean everything up so we could be ready for campers over the weekend.

Bobby (on the right) putting the final cut on a tree

 

Bobby just escaping the falling tree

All the effort was worth it as we now have 35 campers in our camp ground enjoying the cool temperatures and pretty fall colors.

 

Living and Working in Alabama

First I want to apologize for not blogging for almost 2 months.  If you remember, we last left off telling everyone we had accepted a campground hosting job at Corinth Recreation area in Northern Alabama.  We are located about 8 miles Southeast of Double Springs, Al and 65 miles Northwest of Birmingham, Al in the William B. Bankhead National Forest.  We signed a contract to stay here until Oct. 2014 and actually just received the official closing date on 13 Oct. 

Our camp site on Firefly Loop

This campground is without a doubt a jewel in the crown of the National Forest service camping areas.  A number of years ago, the Forest Service closed this area and came in and did a major renovation.  All 52 campsites are full hookup and they maintained the normal separation of campsites like all national forests.  As you can tell from the picture above, we have all the privacy we want.  The campground also has a day use area with a large pavilion and a swim beach.  It is about 2 miles from our site to the other end of the park where the swim beach is and it is covered in grass which we are responsible for mowing. 

Beautiful view of the swim beach

Most of our time is spent cleaning campsites after people leave and yes, we clean toilets.  We have 5 bathroom and shower facilities on site all with flush toilets and hot water which get cleaned everyday. 

Evening view from one of the boat ramps

Considering that campers can only stay 2 weeks here before they have to leave, we feel very blessed that we get to camp here for a total of about 4 months and not costing us a thing but a little work.  Pretty sweet deal!
  There are numerous interesting things in the are to see and we are trying to get out on our days off to go see them.  We went to Natural Bridge which is about 18 miles away last week and really enjoyed it.  The span is approx. 127 feet and is the longest span east of the Rockies.





Stephanie walking between the 2 trees

The hike around the natural bridge area is just over a mile with a small stream running through it.  We decided to take the loop and am very happy to report that Stephanie's hip did very well up and down the trail and back and forth across the stream.

Our next adventure is much closer to home.  The web page for the Corinth Recreation area talks about an old abandoned trail along the lake edge where both confederate and union forces from the civil war etched their names into a rock wall.  We intend on finding it.

Sweet Home Alabama

After our wonderfully relaxing stay at Cheaha State park, we departed on Sunday 8 June and drove 100 miles West and 20 miles North to our next location, Hidden Cove RV park near Arley, AL.  The RV park is located on the shore of Lewis Smith Lake which ,we understand, has 500miles of shoreline and the cleanest water of any lake in Alabama.  Suffice it to say we will not be seeing the entire lake.


Hidden Cove RV Park is a member park of the Thousand Trails club which we belong to and as such we are staying here for 2weeks for $6.  What a deal. 

  It rained fairly regularly for the first 4 days we were here so we didn't do to much sightseeing initially.  Eventually the weather improved and we got out more to see the area.  Going back to the clean water, it is so clear we could stand at the edge of the pool pictured below and see bluegill and catfish swimming by.



 

One of the things that is interesting is we see mushrooms (maybe toadstools) everywhere here.  This one is one of the most unique.  We tried doing some research to see what kind it was but couldn't find anything like it.  The colors in the picture are not tampered with.

On Saturday we talked to a guy who was fishing out on the boat dock above and he told us about the dam and the river below the dam so we decided we needed to drive down and see it.  We pack a quick picnic lunch and headed to the dam which is about 20 miles from our campground.  As it turns out Alabama Power company has a Hydroelectric plant at the dam so there is no access to the dam itself but there is limited access to the river below.

We learned that when they are passing water and producing electricity that a warning horn goes off to tell everyone downstream to get out of the river.  As it turns out the water rises about 15 feet in depth.  The picture below shows one of the river access points under water.  Normally the river bank extends about 10 to 15 feet from the end of the stairway.

There are currently only 2 access points to the river but we read they are going to add 5 additional points in the future.  The trails themselves to the river are also interesting.  We really liked the feeder stream in the picture below.

The trail alongside this feeder creek was covered in Blackberry bushes.  They were pretty but a little tart.

We also took the time while we were out to go and look at the National Forest campgrounds to see if we might want to stay there next.  As it turns out the 2 campground in the area are verrrrry nice.  We stopped and talked with the campground hosts and this led to that and they offered us a job as campground host at Corinth Recreational area campground.  After considering our options we have decided to take the jobs and will be staying in Alabama a while longer.  More on this in our next post.  For now we will leave you with a picture of our new home in Alabama.






Cheaha State Park Alabama

On Sunday, 25 May, we got underway again for a short drive to Cheaha State Park near Oxford/Anniston Alabama.  In our travels so far we have seen many State Parks but by far Cheaha is more like a resort than any.  The 'claim to fame' for Cheaha is that it boasts the highest point in Alabama at 2419 feet.  There is a definite remoteness to the park, even though you are only 18 miles from Oxford, AL, from a electronic communication perspective you might as well be in remote Alaska.  No signal is the rule.  So our week was incommunicado except when we ventured to town.  We would pack a picnic lunch and spend a couple hours at the city park in Oxford so we could check email, make phone calls and just enjoy the area.

 The park was built by the CCC and a few of the cabins built during that period are still being used, while the Alabama Park service has added to that original build over the years.

Restaurant at Cheaha

rental cabin

rental chalet

Hotel

View of Cheaha Lake from Hotel

  We really enjoyed seeing and photographing the different types of wild flowers we saw.

Aster

Flowering Oak bush




Butterfly weed



We also enjoyed seeing deer on most days.

While it didn't rain very much on us at Cheaha, there was a morning fog on most days that added to the remote feeling of the place.





We have enjoyed our stay here at Cheaha.  It was a very serene week with few distractions from the beauty and peace of the area.