Mississippi and Louisiana

It's Sunday evening.  We've been in Farmerville, Louisiana since Friday evening.  Beth's parents had owned a small farm just north of here and she still has relatives in the area.  We leave tomorrow morning for Shrieveport, to continue our tour of Northern Lousiana.

On the way across Mississippi, we stopped at Vicksburg and visited a Civil War battlefield site.  I had written about it a few nights ago but I just looked at the blog and apparently I didn't save it properly.   So I'll give some highlights.  Matthew enjoys getting Junior Ranger badges from National Parks, so we did that at Vicksburg.  We watched a short video that gave the history of the battle, an important victory for the North and something that showed how much of a risk-taker US Grant was (and also how lucky he was in many cases).  We also took a 10 mile drive through the battlefield site.  There are markers for the locations of each military unit and many states have built monuments.  Ohio has 37.  Perhaps the most impressive is the one from Illinois (with quotes from Lincoln).  Matthew ran up the steps and did a Rocky immitation.

It was interesting to learn that this was also considered a naval engagement.  There was an iron-clad ship on the Union side that sank but was raised after 100 years.

After leaving Vicksburg we crossed the Mississippi River and entered Louisiana.  We spent the night at a state park and had dinner at Bobby's Family restaurant, a place recommended by the folks at the visitor's center.  Matthew and I had Gumbo and Beth had fried cat fish - authentic southern food!

On Friday we visited Poverty Point Historic park.  Indians lived here from approximately 2000 BC to 200 BC.  It was interesting because Matthew has studied mound-building Indians in Ohio (but from a different period) and we have visited some of the mounds in Ohio.  Poverty Point is considered the largest "pre-history" location in North America.  There were up to 1,500 people living there and the largest mound was 100 feet high.  Matthew was impressed with the various objects that have been found.

On Saturday we went to the farm where Beth parents had lived after her dad retired.  It was great to see the place and see Joshua, who had lived there by himself until the spring.  Matthew enjoyed the cane plants and we made some walking sticks.

On Sunday we went to Camp Creek Baptist Church, were Beth's parents had been married.  After that we had a great lunch with Aunt Betty, Kim, Keri, David and kids and grandkids.

To wrap up a very full day, we drove north to Eldorado in Arkansas.  This lets us put another state sticker on the RV!