Back on the road again
It’s one of my fastest turnarounds to date. Less than seven weeks after returning from Trip 7 to the Caribbean, I’m heading out again. This trip will visit sites in the south, as it is still too cold to head north of the Mason-Dixon line. (Well, excluding a side trip into Iowa to visit family).
I will take care of some unfinished business over this two-week trip. On Trip 3 in February 2022, I skipped three sites that were originally part of that group. The trip was taken a month before my back surgery, and I was in a lot of pain. I dropped three of the planned sites and moved them to this group.
Gulf Islands National Seashore, Vicksburg National Military Park, and Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument will finally get checked off the list in the next few weeks. I will also drive on my second “Parkway”, though unlike last summer’s seven-mile long drive on the “John D Rockefeller Jr Memorial Parkway” in Wyoming, the “Natchez Trace Parkway” runs for 444 miles through Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee.
I plan to drive the entire Parkway, jumping off three times to visit other sites in Jackson and Tupelo, Mississippi, and Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee. I will visit perhaps the smallest battlefield in the Park Service at Tupelo National Battlefield, sitting literally on one city lot in downtown Tupelo.
Following a four-day break in Des Moines, I head to Arkansas, visiting all NPS sites in the state (other than Pea Ridge National Military Park which I stopped at last fall). This will include the only full-fledged National Park on this trip in Hot Springs, and perhaps the site with the longest full name at “President William Jefferson Clinton Birth House National Historic Site” in Hope.
Almost like a follow-up to last autumn’s visit to the Brown v Board of Education National Historical Park, this trip includes a visit to Little Rock Central High School National Historical Park where the integration demanded by the Brown V Board of Education Supreme Court ruling needed to be enforced by the federal government.
A scenic river in the beautiful Ozark Mountains, and a few historic sites finish out Arkansas, with this trip ending at one more Civil War battlefield. Vicksburg was a critical battle for control of the Mississippi River and was won by Union troops on the same day as the Union prevailed in Gettysburg. Vicksburg also propelled General Ulysses Grant to national prominence.
The south has been ravaged in recent weeks by severe weather and deadly tornadoes. Meanwhile, Des Moines was still receiving snow as of one week ago. I’m hoping both weather patterns will stay away for the duration of my trip. Through the first seven trips, my weather can only be described as near-perfect. Let’s make it through eight trips.
I will, as usual, try to post daily updates in the blog.
Steve
