St. Joseph, Louisiana

The day after visiting Vicksburg, Mississippi we decided to explore the town closest to our RV Park. That town would be St. Joseph, Louisiana, located in the Tensas Parish.

In Louisiana, counties are referred to as Parishes. Parishes come from Louisiana's heavily Catholic heritage. Catholic dioceses are divided into parishes.

St. Joseph was, well, a small town.

To see a few more pictures of St. Joseph, Louisiana, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2007/september/exploring-st-joseph-la/ .

To be continued...

Vicksburg-Famous for #2 Coca-Cola, Around Town

Besides being the site of the end of The Civil War, Vicksburg is also famous because Joseph Biedenharn first bottled Coca-Cola here in 1894.

Joseph Biedenharn began bottling Coca-Cola at his Biedenharn Candy Company in Vicksburg eight years after its 1886 invention in Atlanta, Georgia.

So we decided to visit the first Coca-Cola bottling plant located in Downtown Vicksburg on the cobble-stoned Washington Street.

Here is a representation of the town of Vicksburg when Coca-Cola was first bottled.

This was the original set-up required to provide carbonation to the bottled-beverage. It consisted of a carbonator and a gas generator.

The Museum exhibited a vast array of Coca-Cola memorabilia ranging from old bottle designs to advertising posters to bottling equipment.

Tarzan and Jane (Johnny Weismuller & Maureen O'Sullivan) appeared on this 1934 Coca-Cola tray.

The museum even had an old-fashioned toilet with elevated tank and pull chain to flush.

After using the facilities, Marlon attempted to make a phone call the old-fashioned way.

This is an advertisement from the 1940's as a wife anticipated the return of her GI husband from war.

Just a few blocks away, you can find the Vicksburg levee.

This levee wall details the various flood levels of the Mississippi throughout the years.

We walked through a Riverfront Art Park just across the street from the levee.

Here we are standing on the banks of The Mighty Mississippi River.

As we were leaving Vicksburg and the State of Mississippi, we stopped by the Mississippi Visitor's Center (kind of backward, we know).

Here Doug stands viewing the bridge which spans the Mississippi River and connects Mississippi to Louisiana.

For more pictures of the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum and Vicksburg, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2007/september/vicksburg-mississip/ .

To be continued...

Vicksburg-Famous for #1 End of the Civil War

We decided to drive 50 miles from our RV Park to see the site of the end of the Civil War in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

So we went to the Vicksburg National Military Park.
The park features a 16-mile driving tour of the Battlefield of the Vicksburg Campaign.

Throughout the park are red and blue signs marking trenches and battle lines of the North and the South.

This is the Illinois State Memorial, the largest monument in the park. It was dedicated in 1906, and built for $194,000. Today it would cost more than $45 million to build a similar structure.

The wall inside is filled with the names of thousands of infantrymen of the Civil War. We were able to locate Palmers, Burtons (Jean's maiden name), Carrolls (Angie's maiden name) but no Fleenors.

The only wartime structure remaining in the Vicksburg National Military Park is The Shirley House below. According to the National Park website, the soldier who was to burn the house was shot before he could apply the torch.

There are currently plans to renovate the interior of the house and open it as a museum.

The park ranks among the most heavily monumented parks in the world with over 1,300 various monuments. Here are but a few, the first one being a monument to Andrew Hickenlooper, great-grandfather of the Denver Mayor, John Hickenlooper.


The park features The U.S.S. Cairo, the first armed vessel in the history of warfare to be sunk by a torpedo. It sunk in 12 minutes in 1862 and was not raised from its watery grave until over 100 years later in 1964. For more info, go to http://www.nps.gov/vick/u-s-s-cairo-gunboat.htm .

Over 13,000 of the 17,000 buried at the Vicksburg National Cemetery are officially listed as unidentified.

For more pictures of the Vicksburg National Military Park, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2007/september/exploring-vicksburg-ms-/ .

To be continued...

Shiloh's Lake Bruin Resort, St. Joseph, LA

Today we left Hot Springs, Arkansas and headed for Monroe, Louisiana to visit one of our two home parks. However, because we had just called the day before for a reservation, there were no rv sites available when we arrived. Hopefully, this will not happen often!

So we continued down to our other home park located much more rurally in St. Joseph, Louisiana. Here we were the only visitors. While our pictures show other rvs, most of them are either rental units or units people leave on site during the summer.

Here's where we sat...one of the only spots without trees overhead.
Here we are on the dock at Shiloh on the shore of Lake Bruin.

These weird-looking trees grew in the lake near the shore.

Doug shot this picture of the sunset as Marlon bobbed around in the water.

That was NOT Marlon in the water...not sure WHAT it was.

Across the road from Shiloh were fields of cotton. It was almost cotton pickin' time as evidenced by this picture.

We would be spending 6 nights here at Shiloh's Lake Bruin Resort. Due to its relative isolation, we would be doing a lot of relaxing.

However, we were only about 50 miles away from the site of the end of The Civil War (The War, as they still call it down here) at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

For more pictures of Shiloh, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2007/september/shiloh-rv-resort-st/ .

To be continued...

Bath, Zoo, Santa's Workshop

Today we continued our tour of Hot Springs.

First stop was Buckstaff Baths so that Marlon and David could have the true Hot Springs bath experience. They each had a whirlpool bath, a paraffin hand treatment, hot packs and massage.

Then it was time to head up Hot Springs Mountain to look out over the city.

Then we headed on down to the Arkansas Alligator Farm & Gift Shop & Petting Zoo "Since 1902". That's one long name for one of the oldest Hot Springs attractions.

This guy was at the petting zoo. He is saying "Please feed me...please..."

This guy is saying "stay right where you are, I'll be right over and I can feed myself."

Like most cats in most zoos, this one hardly even noticed we were there.

This little guy could NOT have gotten in a better position for a picture.

See some of these animals in action in the video below.

Next we headed on over to Santa's Workshop just down the street and were entertained with the skills of store owner, glass artisan Patricia.

David commissioned her to make a glass elephant for a co-worker.

See Patricia in action making David's elephant for him in the video below.

Then we headed back to Lake Hamilton RV Park where we fed the resident ducks some more.

To see more pictures, go to http://public.fotki.com/Marlonfleenor/1/2007/september/hot-springs-arkansa/ .

To be continued...