World United States Mississippi Port Gibson

Wandering America

Port Gibson & Grand Gulf May 1, 2010

Wednesday we left Vidalia travelling just 40 miles to Port Gibson, driving along the Natchez Trace which is the old original Indian Trail from Natchez to Nashville even going through part of Alabama, this is now a single lane highway quite narrow in parts so we had to keep tight over when other traffic was approaching, it is only 50 mile limit and no commercial traffic allowed. You can stop off on the way visiting old ruins etc. We are hoping to travel the rest of this route as we go up as there is so much to see along it. We are staying on a campsite in Grand Gulf – Military Monument where there is a so much to explore. The end of the journey here was quite stressful as we had missed the campsite ( GPS had given us wrong directions ) we came to a dead end on a dirt track luckily after Wal walked on a bit to discover there was a turn around up a steep hill, so we unhooked the car and he took the RV up the hill to turn it round. Finally got into campsite an hour later, but it is beautiful here so worth the stress. The weather still hot ,but awful flies about which are now biting.

We spent the day exploring the historical site where we are staying there is a museum on Grand Gulf & the Civil War, loads of original buildings to look round including a Church & a Watermill, old carriages, fire engines etc. We walked round the grounds where there was a cemetery and an Observation Tower which we climbed so we could see the Mississippi River. We then took a long walk to the Mississippi River where you could see the flood sign, it had flooded recently as far as the campsite road, also hiked to see Fort Cobun. The flies still getting on our nerves asked the locals what we can use, they have said to get Vanilla and rub it on us as they don’t like that, we will get some to see if it works!!!! We also saw more different birds one was the Summer Tanager. We get woken up with all the birds singing.

Friday we drove to see Windsor Ruins, well what is left of it now consists of 23 towering Corinthian columns (very ornate at the top) it used to be the largest antebellum mansion in Mississippi. It survived the Civil War and was used as a hospital by the Union troops following the Battle of Port Gibson, it burnt to the ground at the hands of a careless smoker. The dramatic ruins have been featured in a number of movie’s including Raintree County which starred Elizabeth Taylor & Montgomery Cliff. We then spent the rest of the day driving along parts of the Natchez Trace seeing Rocky Springs used to be a town started in 1790 now all that is left is the church, a few safes & 2 cisterns ( wells ), there used to be 2616 people there until Yellow Fever took hold and boo weevil destroyed the cotton crop. We visited Magnum Mound an Indian Burial Mound, Grindstone Ford & Sunken Trace where you can walk along part of the original old trace. It has been an overcast and muggy day, there are more storms forecast and could get as bad as the ones we had last week, we are heading north not far from Yazoo that had the Tornado last week.

We looked round two church's in Port Gibson, one was all blue inside this was because all the windows had dark blue glass in them, it was quite weird being inside. The other church had a GOLD FINGER pointing to Heaven, years ago this was made of wood but the woodpeckers had no thought to why it was there and pecked at it regardless, so it was replaced with the present day one.