Tinbergs on Tour: 6/26/26 Vicksburg MS Partly Cloudy

6/26/26 Vicksburg MS Partly Cloudy - 92F

Port Information. The boat docked at Vicksburg River Front Landing. Vicksburg is a city in western Mississippi and site of a key Civil War battle, the Siege of Vicksburg. The South lost control of the Mississippi River to Union Troops commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant, who captured the city on July 4, 1863. This battle is commemorated at the vast Vicksburg National Military Park, which encompasses the Vicksburg National Cemetery and the restored USS Cairo gunboat. Vicksburg has a population of about 20,000 people. American Heritage docks at Vicksburg Riverfront at Clay Street.

Slept until 5:30 AM this morning – not bad for me. Heritage docked around 6 AM – the boat has thrusters but they are relatively quiet. At 6:45, I went to the Sky Lounge for my Special K w berries and coffee. We are very close to the city here.

This is a panoramic of the whole city.

Found a nice place on deck (with a table for my coffee) and took in the scenery while eating my cereal. The view aft was pretty nice.

At 7:40 AM Ellen and I went to the Restaurant for waffles and two OM. The breakfast was good but getting refills on coffee continues to be problematic.

On tour today, "Vicksburg National Military Park Driving Exploration" a three hour bus tour with minimal walking. At 8:50 AM, we scanned out and walked about five minutes up a ramp and around the corner to catch our bus. I got a nice shot of the Heritage docked.

Everyone got there before us and we were in the seat second from the back. Our guide was great - trained by the National Parks Service in 2008. The Military Park has a Union Side and a Confederate Side (the North has 28 state monuments to the South's 15). There are almost 1400 monuments and markers in the park. The entrance to the park is very interesting with its cannon group. The area must have gotten a lot of rain since everything is green.

After a 20 min stop at the Gift Shop, I remember that Civil War stuff was popular when I was a kid (even fake Confederate Money was also a thing). Not today.

we started the tour. We saw the restored "Shirley House", the only civilian structure in the park (Mrs. Shirley waved a white flag from the second story when troops arrived).

The guide pointed out how difficult it was to engage in battle in the hilly, forested terrain (moving soldiers and supplies). The hillocks provided advantages and disadvantages (seeing the enemy was difficult).

We drove through the Union Side first trying to get pictures from the moving bus - there were some brief stops. I got as many pictures as I could. Every state has a memorial and there are additional monuments recognizing various regiments. This is the Michigan State Memorial

This is the Minnesota State Memorial.

and the Wisconsin State Memorial.

Our guide, who is not a "young un" slowly made it up all those stairs to join some of our people. My knees hurt just watching him.

We next stopped at the USS Cairo Gunboat and Museum, dedicated to the USS Cairo, an iron clad battleship that was "torpedoed" twice as she confronted Confederate ships. Land mines set off remotely by electric current sank the ship in the Yazoo River.

I took a lot of picture of the USS Cairo from all angles.

You can see the damage in the salvaged ship even though it has been restored. I went across the street to get a picture of the Vicksburg National Cemetery where 17,000 Union soldiers are buried including 13,000 unknowns. The unknown graves have no headstone and are flush with the ground.

From there the bus went to the Confederate Side. The Texas State Memorial is the biggest in the park.

There aren’t as many monuments here but there is a status of General John C. Pemberton, widely recognized as a poor military man and responsible for the ultimate defeat at Vicksburg. I couldn't get a shot of the General.

The bus then took about five minutes to get back to the wharf.

We had put in special orders for lunch but didn't want to deal with the Restaurant so we went to the lunch buffet in the Sky Lounge. Cesar Salad and Mac and Cheese. The salad was good but the Mac and Cheese was a little dry for me. It certainly was less chaotic.

At 2 PM, we went back to the wharf and caught the ship's bus for "The Vicksburg Loop", a 30 min hop on hop off route run by the boat using their own bus. We got off at stop #1 the Business District. The town was all gussied up for America250, This was a cute little sitting area on Washing ton Street (the main drag) but it had a lot of tough stairs. A pictue will do - besides it was real warm and not a lot of shade at this hour.

We walked uphill for a few blocks before giving in to the heat. I was spared from heat stroke when Ellen stopped in at goodies store and the nice Southern Lady said I could sit down and enjoy the AC.

It was still 15 minutes until the bus would return. But as we got to the pickup point the bus arrived. The bus couldn't drive down Washington Street so it came back. We were going to do the rest of the loop but instead got off at the wharf.

In a few minutes, we were in the nice AC in our cabin.

I logged 6000 plus steps, which in this heat really felt like 10,000..

Spent a little time in the Sky Louge and tried their cocktail of the day, a Tropical Punch of some kind - it tasted like a Pina Colada.

We had dinner in the Restaurant. We both had the Parmesan Garlic Salmon . I had an iceberg wedge w blue cheese dressing. The salad was huge and I only ate half. The Salmon was cooked perfectly and was good. We both had lemon meringue pie and babka sticky buns (actually more like chocolate babka).

Both were good. This was perhaps the best dinner of the cruise so far but the Restaurant was so loud you couldn't talk. After dinner, we spent a few minutes on the back Deck 4 before the heat and Cajun music drove us inside. I had never heard Cajun Music before - indescribable.

Got a nice picture of the sunset. I took this off the Port Side so you can tell we are headed north.

The entertainment tonight was Mississippi singer songwriter, 35 year old, Alanna Mosely from Carrollton (pop 400).

She was pretty casually dressed (t-shirt and jeans) compared to James, the previous entertainer. She did everything from blues to country including "Country Roads", which was a great sing-a-long. People just can't resist this song.