Vicksburg Visit, or What We Did on Our Winter Vacation

We spent March 3 through March 9 going to and from Vicksburg, Mississippi. There wasn't anything especially spectacular about the trip. It was a nice, relaxing visit to St. Louis (on the way down), Vicksburg (for most of the week), Louisiana (because it was close), and Mount Vernon, Illinois (on the way back).

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is close to halfway between Waukesha and Vicksburg. We stayed in a cheap (major chain) hotel just outside the city Sunday night. On Monday morning, we toured the aquarium at Union Station. It was nice - nothing extraordinary. I did get to have my finger nibbled at by maybe a dozen or so Doctor Fish.

The only pictures we got were ones like this in the gift shop at the end of the tour. It's like a green screen thing without the green screen.

Vicksburg, Mississippi

We arrived in Vicksburg in a rain shower Monday night.

Tensas NWR, Louisiana

First, because Louisiana was just across the Mississippi River and because we'd never been in the state and because we like hiking in such places, we drove about half an hour to the Tensas National Wildlife Reserve.

You're not supposed to trust your GPS to get there. Nuf said.

There was no one at the one main building on the reserve...which didn't surprise me. We didn't see much wildlife either, but it was a nice walk along the boardwalk. We did see what I think is some sort of buzzard, but I couldn't get a good shot of it.

Here's what we saw on the hike. There was a short tower at the end of the boardwalk.

The bird spreading its wings

The boardwalk

Looking back from atop the tower

View forward from atop the tower

Karen likes swamps

I haven't called this in

Vicksburg, Mississippi, Again

We took in the Coke Museum, but I didn't try to take any pictures. It was very dimly lit. The main reason it exists here is because Coke was first bottled in Vicksburg. It had been sold elsewhere, but no one had considered putting it in bottles before. The rest is history.

We took the self-guided tour of the main buildings in the downtown area. There were arrows on the sidewalk to guide your path, along with a map I had printed. There were also numbered signs at most of the "stops", but we're pretty sure the first four of them are missing.

This is where I took most of my pictures on the trip. I won't try to explain any of them. Just take in the architecture and what you can read on the signs. Also, the pictures are not necessarily in chronological or physical (along the suggested path) order.

We also toured the Lower Mississippi River Museum and the attached Mississippi IV. Again, no pictures, but this is a Google street view of the boat.

One evening we ate supper 10 floors up at the 10 South Rooftop Bar & Grill.

Mount Vernon, Illinois

We left Vicksburg in the rain - lots of it.

On the way home, we tried to find the waterfall(s) at Illinois' Ferne Clyffe State Park, just south of Goreville. The park itself it super easy to find. There are good signs all along the way. Once you get into the park, it's a different story.

(I just realized that you get to legally pronounce the "s" in the possessive form of Illinois. Or do you?)

The trails were largely unmarked. The cluttered map is basically useless.

We looked in three different places for the trail that leads to the waterfall area but couldn't find it. So we gave up. I now appreciate even the worst-marked Wisconsin state park trails.

We spent the night at a Super 8 in Mount Vernon where we checked in at the kiosk shown in the blurry photo below.

The girl behind the desk was not there at the time of our check-in. The top of the kiosk, called Kiotel, was like a computer screen where we could see and speak with our host in real-time. The conversation was also close captioned.

It was weird.

Perhaps our remote host could handle several hotels at once this way...?

We were amused by this notice in our room.

We were back home Saturday afternoon ready for our usual early rise on Sunday morning and a trip to Kwik Trip.