Vicksburg, Mississippi and Poverty Point

Woke up refreshed after a quiet night of sleep in our motel room. We got some breakfast and then headed over to Vicksburg National Military Park. We checked out the exhibits in the Visitors Center and stamped our passport books before heading out on the auto road to tour the park.

First we passed under the Memorial Arch and then followed the Union line to some of the different memorials and interpretive sites, the most impressive of which was the Illinois Monument.

Eventually we made it to the highlight of the park, the USS Cairo, a union ironclad gunboat that was sunk in the Yazoo River on December 12, 1862 and recovered in in the 1960s.besides the ship itself, there is an interesting museum that displays some of the artifacts recovered from the wreckage.

From the Cairo we followed the Confederate line back to the visitor center with a few stops at interesting monuments.

It started to rain a bit as we drove, and by the time we returned to the visitor center it was pouring rain. We ate a picnic lunch in the car before heading west into Louisiana for the first time in our lives.

Our destination was the Poverty Point State Historic Site which preserves one of the oldest known mound complexes in the United States. We drove the tour road there and hiked up to the top of the tallest mound, a bird-shaped effigy.

From the State historic Site we headed southwest to Lincoln Parish Park to camp fro the night. Luckily the rain stopped but it's surprisingly cold out there tonight.