Vicksburg and on to Texas Motor Speedway

We spent two days in Vicksburg Mississippi. Tuesday we drove the Vicksburg Civil War battle trail. This was a 16-mile driving trail that covered Grant's attack and seige of Vicksburg. This town, once conquered by Grant, allowed the Union/Federal to control the Mississippi. There was a museum there of the warship Cairo, an ironclad civil war ship that sunk in the Mississippi in 1864. They raised the ship in 1964 (yep, a 100- years later!) and they have put it back together. It was quite amazing. The ship had 175 men on it and went down after being hit by mines place in the river by the Confederates. It sank in 12 minutes but no men died. The pictures hardly do it justice. Afterward, we drove into downtown Vicksburg to visit the pharmacy/soda fountain that first bottled Coca Cola. The owner of this pharmacy sold so much Coca Cola at his soda fountain back in the 1800s that he figured people living out in the country would like a Coke also. So he invented a way to bottle Coke and talked the formula owners in Atlanta to sell him the bottling rights for $1. Bet he made a bundle on his bottled Coke. This morning (Wed) we drove to Dallas and are now sitting in the RV park at the speedway. Everyone's RV is decorated with Halloween lights. Our dogs are going crazy!!