franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
Vicksburg. I slept soundly through the night, at least until about 5:30AM. I woke up to find us completely stopped in amazingly calm water.
I was a little concerned, but figured that they have this stuff down. I don't need to worry. So I got the computer out and was able to upload a few photos one at a time. I may or may not have replied to some TRs, or maybe just my own, but around 6:45-7:00 I put it away, woke Fran, and she suggested I go get a Cappuccino and explore what was up. Speaking of things that don't get old in other TRs, this being able to make your own specialty coffee for free doesn't get old!
To my surprise, we were already landed and the gentleman there said we were free to leave and explore at our leisure. I told him I needed to get breakfast and we'd be on our way. @pkondz See the giant hose I was talking about in the replies, it's in the lower right hand corner of the picture below.
Little did I know that later today I would be walking down that steep road you see in this picture!
Did I mention the river was high?
We headed down to breakfast. This time we were seated with a nice couple from Michigan who may have even been younger than us. We had plans to just get something light from the buffet again, but when I saw Eggs Benedict on the menu and Fran spied the Blueberry Pancakes we decided to go with the menu.
Here is some shots of the dining room, and look over there! In the middle of the picture, I just happened to catch Nigel and Jenny in the picture.
V8 for me.
Coffee as well.
Eggs Benedict, it was good. I’ve had better though.
Blueberry Pancakes for Fran, she liked them a lot.
She did have me get her some sausage from the buffet, and I added some strawberries to the plate which we both enjoyed.
We headed out to the bus stop.
Some of these ramps were quite a challenge for Fran and her scooter.
Looking back at the boat.
We stopped to admire this representation of the various floods that hit the Mississippi River. You'll see two levels there for 1927, the lower one indicates where it breached the levees and flooding began. The second shows where the water level would have been, had the levees been as high as they are today. There will be more on this later.
Today we were going on the hop on hop off bus. We learned a valuable lesson. If your ticket says 8:45, be there at 8:30. The time printed on the ticket is when your bus leaves. So if you show up at 8:45, they put you on the 9AM bus, which is really what we wanted in the first place! This was the first stop called Lower Bluff Art park.
There were several stops on the tour, we were thinking about going to the Coca Cola museum, as Vicksburg was the first place where it was bottled, even if it wasn't invented there. And our other place of interest was the Museum of the Lower Mississippi. The first stop was a shopping center. It didn't open until 10 and it was just after 9AM so that was a bust!
Here’s just a few shots of the town.
This street was still paved with bricks, and the bricks were laid at an angle so that the work animals (horses, donkeys, etc) could walk up the street.
Our next stop was the Church of the Holy Trinity, and then the Anchuca Mansion. Next we went to the Old Courthouse Museum, we considered it, but we didn't get off.
We got to the stop with the Coca-Cola museum and decided it looked at lot smaller than we thought, so we passed.
Canon on the corner, boat in the background.
This building would have been interesting to explore if we had the energy.
The final stop was the Lower Mississippi valley museum.
These are the little signs that they had out at all the stops so you knew where to wait for a bus.
Here we spent a bit of time. In the lobby they had a map of the US and showed the various rivers and how they dissected the country.
We started with a 7 minute film on the region. The first displays showed the history of various water craft that have traversed the Mississippi, from Indian canoes, log rafts that were disassembled and sold for timber after they transported their cargo, all the way to the steamboats of the 1800s.
There was a timeline for the Mississippi valley on one wall indicating all the major events of the region as well as other major US and world events. Reading this timeline it became clear that the US Army Corps of Engineers had a tremendous role in shaping the Mississippi, literally and figuratively. The next wall explained the development of the USACE from their roots in George Washington's times (crossing the Delaware), the Civil War (Burnside’s crossing the Rappahannock with pontoon bridges at Fredricksburg), to their official formation in the 1870s and beyond. These folks have done some amazing feats.
But let's go back to 1927. The flood of 1927 was devastating to the entire region. Tens of thousands of people were displaced as millions of acres of land were flooded. They had this little set up to depict the kinds of tent cities that folks lived in while the Red Cross tended to them. (Without the TV monitors, of course)
[Continued in Next Post]
I was a little concerned, but figured that they have this stuff down. I don't need to worry. So I got the computer out and was able to upload a few photos one at a time. I may or may not have replied to some TRs, or maybe just my own, but around 6:45-7:00 I put it away, woke Fran, and she suggested I go get a Cappuccino and explore what was up. Speaking of things that don't get old in other TRs, this being able to make your own specialty coffee for free doesn't get old!
To my surprise, we were already landed and the gentleman there said we were free to leave and explore at our leisure. I told him I needed to get breakfast and we'd be on our way. @pkondz See the giant hose I was talking about in the replies, it's in the lower right hand corner of the picture below.
Little did I know that later today I would be walking down that steep road you see in this picture!
Did I mention the river was high?
We headed down to breakfast. This time we were seated with a nice couple from Michigan who may have even been younger than us. We had plans to just get something light from the buffet again, but when I saw Eggs Benedict on the menu and Fran spied the Blueberry Pancakes we decided to go with the menu.
Here is some shots of the dining room, and look over there! In the middle of the picture, I just happened to catch Nigel and Jenny in the picture.
V8 for me.
Coffee as well.
Eggs Benedict, it was good. I’ve had better though.
Blueberry Pancakes for Fran, she liked them a lot.
She did have me get her some sausage from the buffet, and I added some strawberries to the plate which we both enjoyed.
We headed out to the bus stop.
Some of these ramps were quite a challenge for Fran and her scooter.
Looking back at the boat.
We stopped to admire this representation of the various floods that hit the Mississippi River. You'll see two levels there for 1927, the lower one indicates where it breached the levees and flooding began. The second shows where the water level would have been, had the levees been as high as they are today. There will be more on this later.
Today we were going on the hop on hop off bus. We learned a valuable lesson. If your ticket says 8:45, be there at 8:30. The time printed on the ticket is when your bus leaves. So if you show up at 8:45, they put you on the 9AM bus, which is really what we wanted in the first place! This was the first stop called Lower Bluff Art park.
There were several stops on the tour, we were thinking about going to the Coca Cola museum, as Vicksburg was the first place where it was bottled, even if it wasn't invented there. And our other place of interest was the Museum of the Lower Mississippi. The first stop was a shopping center. It didn't open until 10 and it was just after 9AM so that was a bust!
Here’s just a few shots of the town.
This street was still paved with bricks, and the bricks were laid at an angle so that the work animals (horses, donkeys, etc) could walk up the street.
Our next stop was the Church of the Holy Trinity, and then the Anchuca Mansion. Next we went to the Old Courthouse Museum, we considered it, but we didn't get off.
We got to the stop with the Coca-Cola museum and decided it looked at lot smaller than we thought, so we passed.
Canon on the corner, boat in the background.
This building would have been interesting to explore if we had the energy.
The final stop was the Lower Mississippi valley museum.
These are the little signs that they had out at all the stops so you knew where to wait for a bus.
Here we spent a bit of time. In the lobby they had a map of the US and showed the various rivers and how they dissected the country.
We started with a 7 minute film on the region. The first displays showed the history of various water craft that have traversed the Mississippi, from Indian canoes, log rafts that were disassembled and sold for timber after they transported their cargo, all the way to the steamboats of the 1800s.
There was a timeline for the Mississippi valley on one wall indicating all the major events of the region as well as other major US and world events. Reading this timeline it became clear that the US Army Corps of Engineers had a tremendous role in shaping the Mississippi, literally and figuratively. The next wall explained the development of the USACE from their roots in George Washington's times (crossing the Delaware), the Civil War (Burnside’s crossing the Rappahannock with pontoon bridges at Fredricksburg), to their official formation in the 1870s and beyond. These folks have done some amazing feats.
But let's go back to 1927. The flood of 1927 was devastating to the entire region. Tens of thousands of people were displaced as millions of acres of land were flooded. They had this little set up to depict the kinds of tent cities that folks lived in while the Red Cross tended to them. (Without the TV monitors, of course)
[Continued in Next Post]