We are gradually visiting more of the local tourist attractions! Earlier in February Tanya came to visit us for a few days! It was so great to see her and we had fun doing some touristy things! Plus she brought along with her a new addition to our household, Patti’s new puppy, Zoey. She is a toy Schnauzer and quite the little scamp!
Of course the Elvis birthplace got another visit. I wonder how many times we will see this, as I am sure every visitor will want to go there!
We also visited some battlefields, one was the Tupelo Battlefield, which is close to our house. This is a small park as the city as enroached on the property over the years. There are a couple of monuments and cannons. There are 2 tombstones and many unmarked graves. The stones that are there were put up fairly recently.
We also drove up to Baldwyn, MS to the Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield. There is a very informative Interpretative site with many displays in addition to the battlefield sites nearby and a Confederate cemetery. I didn’t realize that Mississippi was the 2nd state to leave the Union. There were many Civil war battles fought in this state.
One of the displays there was the bugle with all of the bugle calls that were used during battle. They used different bugle “songs” to indicate what the soldiers should do next, like charge, retreat, etc. We enjoyed pushing all the buttons and listening to the bugle calls!
My favorite was the visit to the Natchez Trace Parkway Visitor Center. The Natchez trace runs from Natchez, MS to close to Nashville, TN. It is 444 miles through 3 states. It is part of the National Park System. The visitor center is located on the Trace in Tupelo. They had a wonderful short video about the Trace and it’s history, along with displays, etc.
We also had lunch one day at Johnnie’s Drive In in Tupelo. This was a diner that Elvis liked to frequent and features HIS booth, complete with a picture of him sitting in it. The entire diner is filled with old photos and memorabilia. Very interesting and the burgers were excellent also!
We also saw this tshirt in one of the gift shops and thought it was cute!
Yep no shortage of gift shops!
I can’t close this blog without mentioning all of our rain! We have totally lost track of how many inches or how many times we have dumped our rain bucket. Needless to say, the ground is saturated and we can’t keep the floors clean with the dogs running in and out. But we aren’t flooded out like some areas that are close to rivers and creeks, so we have nothing major to complain about !
And on a very positive note, the daffodils are blooming—Spring is in the air!