Vicksburg and the drive home

Last post from our cross-country trip!

We made a stop in Vicksburg and ended up spending twice as many hours as anticipated.  Another place to come back to in order to see everything.

Starting at the Vicksburg National Military Park - we drove through part of it, but it would have been a really good place for a bike ride.  Especially on a warm sunny day, it was no wonder we were happy to be walking around.

The Illinois Memorial, one of the larger monuments in the park:

Inside the memorial:

John could sleep here on a nice day, now that the guns are quiet...

 A tunnel dug by Union troops to avoid going over an exposed ridge:

Navy Memorial - a very tall obelisk:

Porter and Farragut:

The USS Cairo, an ironclad that was sunk in the Yazoo River.  The mud preserved the boat and artifacts in it, and much was recovered over 100 years later.  Now on display:

Checking out some original parts interlaced with a framework to demonstrate how it used to look:

Paddle wheels to propel the boat up the river:

View from the back:

Tug and the USS Cairo:

A small museum has items from the ship on display:

No one died during the sinking but they lost most of their stuff.  Many items were found during the recovery - that must have been some interesting diving in a muddy river.

We drove through the town of Vicksburg for a brief stop.  Murals painted on the flood walls by the river:

Flood markers - it's not always easy living next to a big river:

Mural of a train ferry that was used to transport trains across the Mississippi River (before bridges were built), wow!

A riverboat docked at Vicksburg - apparently you can go on a cruise on a steamboat, that's neat!

We had just enough daylight remaining to drive across the top of Louisiana and jog a mile up a trail to the highpoint of the state:

In a bit of a rush and without much daylight left, our photos didn't turn out great.  John attempted a summit pose but all I got was this:

More photos here - highpoint #18!
http://www.kipley.com/marcy/highpoints/louisiana.html

And with that - I'm caught up!  Time to start doing stuff again...

Chattanooga and Cheaha

We finished up our Lookout Mountain tourist experience by visiting Ruby Falls, an underground waterfall deep in a cave.  An elevator ride and a rather long walk through a narrow cave yielded several interesting sights, along with a neat story about how a man had found it in the first place.

To start off the day, the tail-end of a donkey:

A guy named Leo Lambert was drilling an elevator shaft to set up a tourist operation at a lower (known) cave when he discovered this enclosed passageway.  Exploring it, he found a huge waterfall and a bunch of rock formations.  That must have been quite a day for him!  Both caves were open to the public for a while, but now only the upper one because it is a lot more interesting.

According to our guide, this is the Southern Tennessee Rock Fish (or something to that effect):

The waterfall is spectacular, the largest by far that we have ever seen underground.  They let you see it in "normal" conditions briefly before they start a rather corny light and music show.  It did allow for some colorful photography (and the Christmas music was a nice touch):

65-foot high and pretty amazing!

A pretty pool and more cave formations:

Solar installation at the Ruby Falls building:

On the way back to town we stopped in at the International Museum of Towing and Recovery (just because it was there and we were curious).  They have a room packed full of all kinds of tow trucks, new and old.  For example:

World's Fastest Wrecker - 109 mph at the Talladega track:

A "Toe Truck":

More tow trucks:

And finally, into town for a glimpse of the Chattanooga Choo Choo!

Time to leave Tennessee (for now).  We will be back!  Maybe sooner than expected...

On the way west we took a detour to the top of Alabama at Cheaha State Park:

 
A couple more photos here:
http://www.kipley.com/marcy/highpoints/alabama.html

View from an overlook at more of Alabama:

A photo for Bob:

Almost done with our December 2013 cross-country journey!

Tennessee travels

As soon as we got into Tennessee we knew it was a different kind of country:

First stop in our meanderings was the birthplace of Davy Crockett:

The little house he grew up in:

I think I have heard this line before - "You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas!"

Just down the road is the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site:

We were rather curious as to how he would be presented, so we took some time to go through the displays.  It seems pretty complicated, but I came out of it impressed that he was such a defender of the Constitution, at the very least.

The pretty brick houses at the site in Greeneville, TN:

Andrew Johnson grave site:

On our way toward Knoxville for the night, we swung through Sevierville for a quick look at Dolly Parton's hometown and we found this lovely statue:

Also collected a bunch of ideas for places to visit next year in that area.

Next - on to Chattanooga where there appeared to be many things to do.  Quite so!

We started up on Lookout Mountain doing many touristy things.  Rock City seemed interesting, and it turned out to be really elaborate and a bit of "we haven't seen that before".

Including the rock-version of Starbucks across the street:

John could sleep here, for sure:

The paths wound down and around and up, a fun way to spend a morning through rocks and stone structures, natural and not-so-much:

A large version of a birdhouse - apparently "See Rock City" birdhouses are one way they do marketing.  That and a huge number of highway billboards...

Fun stone paths:

A hanging bridge:

View from the top of Lookout Mountain, including an eagle sculpture with excellent placement:

Some days you can apparently see seven states from atop the mountain.  It was too hazy that day to see more than two or three, but we were happy the sun was shining so we weren't complaining.

Rock snowman:

Nice vantage point:

Lovers Leap waterfalls, also a giant star with lights.  There is a Christmas nighttime light display at Rock City that we considered, but decided that Brookside Gardens in Maryland would be hard to beat.  Plus the new Hobbit movie was playing in theaters...

Another Christmas light display:

There were many gnomes around...

More gnomes on the way to the nursery rhyme cavern:

Back outside to reality - and a great overlook of Chattanooga from the northern end of Lookout Mountain:

We absorbed a good bit of Civil War history in this area, something I had not known much about.

Then it was time to ride the Incline Railway - the world's steepest, with a max incline of 72.7%.  It was steep!

The view from the bottom, also notable for its proximity to the Pasha Coffee House in St Elmo...

We found plenty to do in Chattanooga, so much that we spent some extra time there (next post).  That's without even running the trails around Lookout Mountain, since I was still recovering from Hellgate.  We will probably have to go back...