Carol and Vern's excellent adventure, part 4, the return home

Friday, the 24th  - Sherman traveled across the southern United States leaving burning cities in his wake, Savannah decided to surrender and save the town from burning. Carol was excited about seeing the old south minus the destruction of the Civil War. BUT we learned that the city had burned, many times in fact over the years since the end of the Civil War. While it was old and charming, it was a let down in many ways, it was horribly congested and we really didn't see much that excited us. We went on a trolley tour and got to see the old downtown... like I said it was disappointing and expensive.

Saturday, the 25^th we drove in rain from Savannah to Panama City Florida. Carol found us a nice hotel with a room facing the beach so we could listen to the surf from our balcony, unfortunately our room had an air conditioning system with an extra loud fan that completely blocked the sounds of the surf... and when our AC unit was off there were others surrounding us. It was late so we retired early and did some reading. The next morning we took off our shoes and hiked down the beach, the waves were breaking hard, the sounds and smells were fantastic. Too soon we had to be back on the road again.

It was a warm day, the sun was shining bright, we decided to go topless, so put the top down on the Mustang and hit the road. The GPS lady wanted us to go via the Interstate but we wanted to stay close to the coast so we could see as much of the Gulf as possible, so we put up with her “recalculating” speech for a couple of hours.

As we got close to Mobile we saw signs for a Maritime Museum featuring the battleship USS

Alabama and the submarine USS Drum. This wasn't on our schedule but when we travel we try to build in a bit of flexibility to take advantage of what should appear – as some of these diversions can be the best part of the trip and this was a really outstanding detour! After you pay a small entrance fee the ship is open for exploration. There were three self guided tours: top side, forward and aft under decks. Carol and I took a tour of the upper decks and the aft part of the ship which included engine rooms, fire stations for directing the big guns (rooms of equipment that I am guessing could be replaced by a laptop today!), the loading stations for the 16” and 5” guns. Lots of crew spaces, hospitals, etc. Fascinating!!!

barbette

16" artillery shells

The gun turrets are mounted on a steel cylinder with an inside diameter of about 40', called a barbette.  This cylinder extends from the deck to the hull of the ship and is 16" thick solid steel!

fire control

aft torpedo room, note rack (bed) in upper left corner

After the Alabama we looked at some aircraft of the same era and then toured the USS Drum. While the spaces in the Alabama were tight, the spaces in the Drum were quite small with crew racks over every piece of equipment including torpedoes. Hard to imagine life on either ship. I worked in an office on dry land for most of my military time.

We rolled into New Orleans in a light rain just as the sun was setting. Our hotel was in a mid 1800s residential complex that had been remodeled, our hotel didn't have a sign, so when our GPS guided us there we were not sure if we had entered the address incorrectly or what. The hotel attendant greeted Carol with, “Yep, you are in the right place.” Bet she says that a hundred times a day!

Monday, the 27th - Severe weather over night, almost 4 inches of rain, water standing everywhere, we watched news coverage of strong winds blowing a train off a bridge, lots of power outages. But despite the weather we decided to have lunch at Commanders Palace. Carol was so excited, Commander's Palace is a 5 star restaurant and is high on her bucket list. The service is the best I have ever experienced!!! The food was excellent. Btw, if you want to eat there you have to dress up, no un-collared shirts, shorts or jeans allowed, in fact they recommend suit and tie for men and dresses for women. We went back to the room after lunch, waited for the rain to subside, then rode the trolley to the french quarter where we walked around for a couple of hours. We got a drink and walked about some, did some window shopping, I bought a couple of hand rolled cigars (I smoke one cigar a year so it was a splurge), had supper at the Hard Rock Cafe. At this point it was probably about 7 pm and we were bored so we caught the trolley and went back to the hotel. It was, for both of us, a kind of been-there-done-that experience, we don't need to go back.

The plan has changed, we met some people from Minnesota at a rest stop before we got to New Orleans.  They own half a dozen mustangs and were admiring ours and it was just enough to start a conversation.  They had toured the Vicksburg and Natchez battlegrounds so we decided to take another diversion and visit the Vicksburg battleground. On the road to Vicksburg we must have met 200 electrical utility boom trucks, in caravans, heading for the New Orleans area, we knew the storm was big but that is a lot of trucks and people!

20,000 men died in the battle of Vicksburg from May 18 – July 4, 1863 in one of the final battles of

USS Cairo sunk in the Mississippi on 12 December 1862

the Civil War.  The Confederate forces under Lt. Gen. John C Pemberton was able to control commercial and military traffic on the Mississippi river from the bluffs bordering the river.  Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S Grant was able to move his troops to the south of Vicksburg and surprise the Confederate forces and starved them out.  Pemberton surrendered on July 4th.  After the war members of both the Union and Confederate Armies came back to the battleground and marked off their respective positions and provided historians with an accurate timetable of the battle.

We drove through the battle field in a steady drizzle, I suppose due to the weather there were few cars in the park and so it was serene and a bit eerie. The Confederates were dug in at the top of the hill and held the advantage of the higher position.  The Union army dug trenches and surrounded the Confederate Army... looking at the battlefield it must have been a gruesome 45 days!!!  There are read signs marking Confederate positions and movement and blue signs for the Union Army.  Literally hundreds of memorials, some simple slabs of stone and others are huge buildings and full size bronze statues.

Carol booked us a room at the Cedar Grove Mansion Inn and Restaurant in Vicksburg.  This Antebellum estate is considered to be one of the largest and most elegant bed and breakfasts in the south. 
                 
The price of a room for the night was about $150 which included breakfast for two.  The house had been taken over during the Civil war as the Union Headquarters and Hospital.  We stayed in General Sherman's room. 

Yep, there was a cannon ball in the wall of the living room!  All total the house had been hit I think 67 times.  They preserved cannonball holes in the doors and floors.


At this point we were getting a little tired of being a tourist and decided to head for home.  We made it in two days of hard driving... sure nice to sleep in our own bed!

We put 5,100 miles on the mustang.  We got about 25 mpg.

I never expected so many trees in the south.  The trees line the right of way on most every highway, dense to the point that you have no idea if there is anything beyond or not, except that there have been traffic lights every mile or so for the last 10 miles and there is a ton of traffic.... but not a house or business in sight!

We had great weather.  Nice temperatures, between 70 and 80 degrees on most of the trip, a bit of humidity but not oppressive and only infrequently.  Except for New Orleans the rain didn't slow us down much.

All in all a great trip.  Special thanks to my co-pilot on the trip, we make a pretty good traveling team.