Changing Course

Thanksgiving season is upon us. We hear it in the excited chatter of children in the lobby of our hotel.  We see it in the bustle of shoppers eagerly filling their carts at the grocery store.  We feel it in the crush of traffic as people hit the roads on their way to be with those they love.

Though we're not particularly sentimental about holidays, we have family members who are.  We declined invitations from both sides of our family to spend Thanksgiving with them because we expected to be much farther west on our trip by this time.  When we realized this morning that we were less than three hours from my family's Thanksgiving celebration, we considered backtracking a bit for this opportunity to be with so many of our loved ones.

Before we decided, we headed west to Vicksburg.  At first we didn't realize that US-80 is dual marked with I-20 as it leaves Jackson going west.  Just as we have been doing, to stay off the interstate we asked the GPS to take us to Vicksburg using a route that minimizes freeways.  With 80 not running parallel to I-20, as it has been, Geeps had to get creative.  On a convoluted route, she sent us north on a state highway to the Natchez Trace, southwest on the trace to MS-467 which took us to Edwards (pop. 1,031) where we picked up US-80, but it turned out not to be the real deal.

RUINS OF FORMER BUSINESSES IN THE TOWN OF EDWARDS

Like the town of Edwards, which has lost 25% of its population in the last five years, the road that is now called Old US-80 leading out of town is suffering from neglect.  Far from the smooth ribbon of road we traveled east of Jackson, the former US-80 was webbed with deep cracks, pocked with potholes, and marked with ancient lumpy patches.  Apparently no one is charged with maintaining it, and it shows.

THE WORD IS OUT; OLD US-80 IS BEST AVOIDED.

Just past a wide place in the road with a water tower labeled Bovina, the current US-80 parted ways with I-20.  The connection with Old 80 was seamless but dramatic as we were back to a well-maintained road on our approach to Vicksburg.  Before entering the town, we were diverted north to find a letterbox tribute to a Missouri transplant who was sent to the area by the CCC in the 1930s and decided to stay.  He apparently was an influential leader in Boy Scouts in the area as he led one troop for 50 years.  The letterbox had been there for ten years, and its container was half gone.  It seemed fitting for us to do a good deed and render first aid.  

THE REHABBED LETTERBOX BEFORE (L) AND AFTER (R)

We found a few letterboxes near the Mississippi River and set about collecting a sample of the chief river of the largest drainage system in North America.  The river's watershed collects flow from 31 states and two Canadian provinces.  It certainly seemed worthy to earn a place with our test tube assemblage of ocean waters.  In this part of the state, however, we were unable to get to river level easily because Vicksburg is built on a bluff.

Crossing the river to Louisiana yielded no greater opportunity to get riverside, but we did chance upon a footnote of the Civil War known as Grant's Canal.  By January, 1863, Union forces had barged their way to Memphis and pushed up the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico to Baton Rouge.  The only stronghold blocking federal control of the river was Vicksburg, high on an artillery-fortified bluff at a bend in the river.  Efforts to capture the city by land and by water had been beaten back on multiple occasions.

Yet control of the river was vital to the Union cause.  It would split the Confederacy in half and restore a vital shipping artery to the North.  General Grant was charged with capturing the city and, with the history of stinging Union defeats there, came up with the idea to simply bypass Vicksburg.  He would have his troops dig a canal across Desoto Point, a peninsula in the bend of the river.  Engineers assured him that if the levee was cut upstream, the river would rush into the canal and shift its flow west of Vicksburg, making the city irrelevant and putting the Mississippi River in Union hands.

Inspired and clever as the plan was, it proved impossible to implement.  Rain had swelled the river to flood stage and soldiers were working under debilitating conditions—cold, wet, disease-ridden, mosquito-infested.  Hundreds died in the effort before the project was abandoned in the spring and Vicksburg was taken in July after a traditional attack and two-month siege.  Remnants of Grant's Canal are evident near the little town of Delta, LA.  The area is marked with interpretive signs and considered part of the Vicksburg National Military Park.  And, by the way, during the flood of 1876—too late to help Union forces—the Mississippi River did change course and cut a secondary channel across Desoto Point near the site of Grant's Canal.

By the time we were ready to leave the remnant of the canal, we had decided to follow the lead of Grant and the Mississippi and change course, returning across the river to Vicksburg.  After taking a few photos on the hill above the river, we headed back to Jackson to overnight on our way to Thanksgiving family fun and frolics tomorrow.  We haven't mentioned to anyone that we're backtracking to attend.  Maybe we'll let it be a surprise.

TUESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2016
    •  Started in:  Jackson, MS
    •  Ended in:  Jackson, MS
    •  Miles driven:  115   (trip:  1,315)
    •  Weather:  32° to 71°, clear
    •  Letterboxes:  4 found   (trip: 23F, 7P)
    •  Walked:  2.4 miles   (trip:  21.9)
    •  States:  MS, LA  (trip:  4)
    •  Counties:  4   (trip:  51)
    •  Towns:  7   (trip:  97)
    •  Gas:  $2.299 (premium), Jackson, MS
    •  Water collected from Mississippi River:  0 oz.
    •  Ducks launched in Mississippi River:  0