“FATHER OF WATERS” OR “GREAT RIVER”…

  As we left our campground Wednesday morning, I had McGuyver slow down so I could take a photo of this very cool vintage motorhome that parked just down from us….

 

…This is a Crown Commander motorhome…vintage about 1973.  It was in pretty good shape with the exception of the front bumper…I love old stuff!!! So does Dennis..hence our marriage is working out pretty fine!

  We only had about 100 miles to drive to Greenville, MS.  The weather was in the 70’s…We arrived at Warfield Point Park about 11:30AM, which gave McGuyver lots of time to put up our HD TV dish AND our Hughesnet.  I must say that he is getting quite good at this , and now uses very few expletives during the process.

We are camped directly on the Mississippi River and the barges go right by us.  McGuyver is in 7th heaven…He loves anything that involves the terms, locks, dams, barges and tugboats…I will have a hard time dragging him inside at night.

 

 

 

That would be McGuyver in the distance watching a barge come through….The Mississippi was named by the Algonquin Indians, and it means “Father of Waters”, or “Great River”….Can  you just imagine how vast this river seemed to the Native Americans who first saw it??…  I would love to stick my toe in it to “channel” some history, but there are big signs warning of the undertow….so I won’t be channeling anything from the river…

 

We took our walk around the park and discovered an old paddle wheeler parked behind a chain link fence.  (Am I NOT going to be able to touch ANYTHING  for my psychic history??)

…Above is the MV Fayettville, built in 1924 in Charleston, SC….

…That would be the old paddlewheel on the right.  They do have plans to restore this great ship.  I’m sure money will be an issue, though..…Dennis calls this a “sternwheeler”….I have no idea if there is a difference…I wish I could consult Mickey Mouse…Didn’t he pilot one once,  in a cartoon?? NOW I AM REALLY DATING MYSELF!!

On our walkabout, we also found a great observation tower to help get our cardio work-out for the day….(Nellie would be proud!)  Once at the top (breathe in, breathe out)…the view of this great old river was..dare I say it???…AWESOME!!! (a nod to Margie, who would definitely approve)…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This river flooded and crested at 65.4’ in 1927, and they marked it on the tower…YIKES…

On the right, my driver, fixer, and sometime the fodder for my blog…but always my co-conspirator in crime, Dennis, AKA McGuyver….(Lookin’ pretty spiffy, if I do say)…Great River..Great Guy…

We are going into Greenville to do a little sightseeing this weekend.  I am hoping to actually get my hands on something historical, and I feel this could be a promising trip to town..I KNOW I will get my hands on some Church’s chicken to bring back for dinner!!!

 

SUNSET ON THE “FATHER OF WATERS”

I JUST LOVE OUR COUNTRY!!!

THANKS TO ALL THE VETERANS WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE TO BE HERE!

LAUNDRY, GROCERIES….AND A US HISTORY LESSON….

 

Last night’s Cornish Hens….I managed to cut off their legs in this photo shoot….Ansell Adams, I am not….But THEY were great!!

Before I get into my blog, I need to warn you kids in the backseat of the GMC…Angela tells me she is getting carsick.  So whoever is sitting next to her might want to grab one of the WalMart bags and keep it handy.  (Hopefully, Kenny is right beside her, so he can deal with it..)

  Today McGuyver and I found the coin laundry and had a fairly non-eventful time.  I say “fairly” because it was a challenge finding a clean spot to sit and do crossword puzzles while waiting on our laundry…I also say “fairly” because  after we left the laundry, McGuyver discovered his fly had been down the whole time we were there…Luckily, no one  was in there but us, or it could have been lots more entertaining…Luckily, also, that he discovered this faux pas  BEFORE we went into WalMart. McGuyver would have fit right in with all of those WalMart shoppers we get on our email.

  We took a drive up Scenic Loop 333 to the Grenada Dam…This is one huge lake!!   And what a great day!! The temps got up to 65 degrees…finally!

 

  We also discovered the sight of an old Confederate fort on that road…Fort Redoubt.  

…We walked up the wooden walkway and found the original Grenada-Graysport Road, hidden deep in the woods…

…This road was used by Confederate General Van Dorn and his troops when they raided General Grant’s supply depot, thus stopping Grant from invading Grenada… As I stepped across this old “forest floor” road, I could just imagine the excitement of the Rebel soldiers, sneaking up and destroying Grant’s much needed supplies..(You may already know how I am with this kind of stuff.. You can call ME nutso…, but I call it “channeling” history…)

We headed up a long wooden stairway and came to the top of a hill.  The earth was built up in different points, but there were no remains of the fort, except a few placed cannons…. This spot sat just above the old road below..a definite vantage point to see who and what was coming…I LOVE THIS HISTORY STUFF!!!

What you have on the left is one HAPPY CAMPER standing by that cannon …I think this trip through Mississippi and Louisiana is going to be MEGA EXCITING  for McGuyver and me!!..When I was in high school,  I hated ANY kind of history class.  Then …..I took the required US History class as a freshman in college, and was fortunate enough to get a fabulous history professor.  He was the one who turned me on to our great country’s  story….Thanks Proffesor Lehr….I never listened that close to any instructor ever before  (and never have since…this includes my Driver’s Ed. instructor in high school, who would attest to that fact.)

  When we got back to our Hiker, we took a walk down to the boat launch.  This is the most ridiculous boat launch I have ever seen.  Grenada Lake is definitely quite low at this end…..the trees are sticking up out of the water…It is virtually a dry lake bed here…

 

 

Notice where the ramp leads…WHAT THE HELL??? The only boat you could launch from this ramp would be Aiden’s bathtub boat!!!

 

 

 

 

While we stood there, a guy with a boat in the back end of his pickup (what, no trailer?) pulled past us and followed the muddy lake bottom to find some water to unload his boat into….That little puddle of water at the end of the ramp (right photo) wasn’t gonna do it, for sure!!

So, all it going extremely well at the Cave Dwellings…

…We are deep in the woods of Mississippi .  Wednesday we leave here and head to Greenville, MS for 4 nights.  I have already researched things to see there…As you can see,  last night I had a  much more colorful outfit to wear by the fire….

Thanks y’all for following…Oh, and Angela…take some Dramamine, or I’ll be dressing you for our next campfire!!….

NO BEARS TODAY…REAL OR OTHERWISE….

First of all I would like to welcome another brave new follower, Lynn-Country Heart and Roses….It is my firm belief that there is nothing better than a “country heart”, and I hope you like riding with this rowdy group we have in the back seat of our GMC!!!  WE DO HAVE FUN, THATS’ FOR SURE!

    Today is Sunday, which means Chicago Bears football at our house.  However, we cannot get the Bears down here, so we will have to be content with checking our WGN Chicago radio station online….To tell you the truth, they have been zero, zip, zilch fun to watch lately anyway.  We need an offensive line to protect our quarterback, and so far we have a bunch of panty wastes.  I WANT DITKA BACK!!! WHAT COACH HAS THE NAME OF “LOVEY” ANYWAY???

This campground we are in has had lots of work done since we were here last…They poured all new pads and got new picnic tables, grills and fire pits since we were here 2 years ago….

….Maybe this is the reason the price went up this year.

EVERY SITE EVEN GOT NEW GARBAGE CANS..NOW THAT’S PROGRESS!!

This park has a few spots in the front that are out of the trees, but most of the sites are in heavily wooded areas.

At one point in time, there  must have been an old bridge over the ravine…The cement remains are still here in the photo on the right. There is no shortage of firewood here and McGuyver has been busy as a beaver with his electric chain saw.  We found some huge mushrooms growing on some of the wood…

If I knew for certain I wouldn’t die, I would love to stuff that big one and have it for dinner tonight….

Tomorrow is laundry day, so we will drive back into Grenada and probably pick up a few groceries.  Tonight we are having Cornish Game Hens on the grill, and I have them marinating in buttermilk, garlic pepper and Louisiana Hot Sauce.  All they need is my famous rub, and they will be good to go. I also made some homemade potato salad to go with them.. See kids, I told you that we would get to the good food eventually!!!

Our game plan from here is to go to Greenville MS to Warfield Point Military Park for 4 nights, then on to Lake Bruin State Park  LA,  which will be our base camp to go to Vicksburg.  We will be there 1 week.  We have found that you MUST have a reservation over Thanksgiving weekend, or you could spend it in a WalMart parking lot eating KFC.  Therefore, we booked ourselves in at North Toledo Bend State Park in Louisiana  for the week covering Thanksgiving.  From there we are fairly close to Natchitoses, LA to do some day tripping.  After that, we hope to spend some time in Jefferson TX.

  So now that you see we actually HAVE  a plan, you can relax and stop asking “Are we there yet?”….Yes, we are.. we are there..and there….and there….and that’s the beauty of pulling your house behind!!! 

MORE LATER…AND THANKS AGAIN FOR CHECKING IN!!!

“WHERE Y’ALL FROM IN ILLINOISSSSS??”

  I love the South…We get this question from local campers as soon as we park and they see our Illinois license plates…And if we told them that we are from Sandwich, IL, they would be clueless..So, we say we are from a small rural town about 60 miles Southwest of Chicago, called Sandwich…THEN they get the picture.

  We drove 325 miles yesterday to arrive in Grenada, MS.  There was some interesting road construction (like that is news) going through Memphis.  As McGuyver was navigating the Hiker through VERY narrow and curving lanes, with huge semi  trailer trucks beside us…I was keeping my mouth closed and quietly praying to the Elvis Presley God to get us through safely…”Thank you,…Thank you vermuch”…..

  Once we got to the town of Grenada, we had another 18 miles to get to our campground at Grenada Lake.  We have been here before, and it is a pretty drive deep into the woods.  FYI, the diesel price was cheaper than Illinois, $2.89…”fill ‘er up, please”….and we did.

 

Notice my ensemble is not QUITE as colorful as I usually wear…

I really must get out my pink socks and plaid “happy pants”…..

We were here 2 years ago..It is and Army Corps park, so us older folks get 1/2 price camping..The last time we were  here it was $5.00 a night..this time it is $7.00…inflation hits the Corps parks, I guess.

There is an old cemetery here on the grounds, protected only by a fence which has been walked over numerous times…This morning for our walk we found it again, back behind some of the campers…

  Left, is the path to the cemetery…right, you can see the gate to get into it….

  This apparently is an old family cemetery.  The name Ingram was prevalent on the tombstones..

 

 

One larger stone has this insignia on it…It says “Woodmen Of The World”, which was a fraternal organization organized to provide insurance for it’s founder….That link is pretty informative, but if you want to be further inquisitive,  like I was, just Google it…They had some pretty interesting “ceremonies” back in the day..

So, we are trying to decide when we will leave here..We paid for 5 nights, planning on heading to Vicksburg.  We were  thinking the Louisiana State Park system honored the “Golden Age” card..Well…..it used to…until they changed the rules.  They will only honor it if OUR home state park system does…Does the Illinois State Park system honor the Golden Age Card?, you ask…HELL, NO!! ILLINOIS IS SO BROKE WE SUCK…AND…. WE HAVE NO HONOR ANYWAY…..(There, I feel much better now..)

  So, we are still pondering our next move.   Right now,  McGuyver is changing the fuel filter on the GMC….We seemed to be having some problems climbing the big hills while pulling our Hiker on the last 50 miles of our trip yesterday…McGuyver thinks we may need a new fuel filter.  It has been a while since it was changed…HMMMMM…Was that on his list of “to do” stuff???

  At any rate, we are here in the Mississippi woods,  and the weather is warming up nicely…You kids can put away your winter jackets soon, and get out the sweatshirts!!! As for McGuyver and I…we are living life…and LOVING IT!!!

FIRST NIGHT ON THE ROAD..BRRRRRRR!

  Monday morning we pointed the Hiker South on Rt 47 and headed toward the small Southern IL town of Chrisman.  Den’s cousin and husband live on a farm there.  We had planned to leave the Hiker at their farm for 2 nights and drive the GMC to Indy…that way we wouldn’t have to drive the Hiker through the road construction and heavy traffic. (Not to mention there is no good place to camp close the Chris and John’s house. ) As it turned out, the low trees on the lane going to their farm prohibited us from taking the Hiker there, so they arranged with one of the neighboring farmers for us to leave the Hiker at their farm…

She sure looked lonely sitting next to the pole building without us for 2 nights..but we promised we would be back to pick her up early Wednesday morning….(OK, all of you kids in the back seat of the GMC..QUIT SNIVELING!!!! WE WILL GET THE HIKER BACK SOON!!)

  We got to Chris and John’s house after driving through terrible road construction on I-465 around Indy..(and thanks to you same kids for not misbehaving while McGuyver was maneuvering through the orange cones and barricades).

Haven’t decided if Aiden was trying to adjust his “safety glasses”…or just picking his nose….

 

 

We will miss this little guy…and ALL of the grands, but we have our ever faithful technology, the Logitech WebCam, so we can see them online anytime we choose….Chris and John are getting ready to move…They sold their home and are looking to buy or build a new home.  On Nov. 19th , they close on the sale of their home and will move into a 6 mo. leased apartment until they either begin building…or buy a  new home..So, this was our last visit to this house….

It just so happened that the Indianapolis Colts playing Houston on Monday Night Football… at the brand new Lucas Oil Stadium in Indy…John called from work late Monday afternoon and asked Dennis if he would like to go to the game….John had tickets for the Monarch Beverage Suite (John is the I.T. guy for Monarch..and Monarch Beverage is the biggest beer and wine distributor in Indiana)…ARE YOU SERIOUS??? DO BIRDS FLY?  FREE BEER AND FOOD???? AND FREE GAME TICKETS??? OF COURSE , MCGUYVER WOULD LOVE TO GO.!!!!!

ARE THESE TWO GUYS HAVING FUN..OR WHAT????

We had a great time with Chris, John and Aiden…and true to our word, we picked up the Hiker about 9AM on Wednesday morning and headed South on I-57.

Here is our place for last night and tonight……

This is called Rend Lake…Gun Creek Campground…It is an Army Corps campground, thus, for us old farts it only costs half the normal camping fee of $16.00. (I lied about the rest of you kids in the back seat).  I feel $8.00 is a darn good price.  We get electric for that, and use our water on board…

This is the view of the lake from the campsite across from us…There are white caps on the lake today and it is getting VERY COLD!!!

Tomorrow morning we are packing it up and heading further South ,into Mississippi..being chased by a LARGE, drooping cold front from the North.  Soooo,  make sure all of you have your stuff packed up and be ready to go  bright and early at first light tomorrow..We have about 300 miles to travel if you want to shed your winter coats sometime soon!!!

 

 

No, we are not stopping for a Big Mac along the way..I have already packed cheese and crackers……GET OVER IT!!!