SW USA 2024: The Canadian Coddiwomplers*
*Coddiwomple: “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination."
We pulled off the highway here for lunch! What a laugh.
On the way to Gatlinburg, we travelled through Arkansas and the west part of Tennessee, stopping at two campgrounds just for one night. The first was Ivy's Cove near Russellville, AR and the second was Delta Ridge near Forest City AR.
Parker’s Crossroads
Example of a "dogtrot" house, one story with two rooms or "pens",
separated by a passage and covered by a gable roof.
Our third stop was Parker’s Crossroads. We stayed there on our way to Arizona in February but not long enough to check out the historical area. This time we stopped for two nights. Parker’s Crossroads is the site of an important battle in the American Civil War, one for which both sides claim victory. The visitor center is quite informative and has a great display of objects (mainly shells) found in the fields around the area. Re‑enactments take place there at various times of the year.
The society that preserves civil war battlegrounds has created self-guided walking trails and one auto tour. We bought the $2 CD that accompanies the seven stop auto tour. It was fun driving around the area and seeing the places where various parts of the battle happened. Looking at the beautiful countryside it was hard to imagine the fighting that took place there on December 31, 1862.
Briefly (I hope), the Confederate Army wanted to stop the Union’s planned assault on Vicksburg. General Nathan B. Forrest and his 1,800-man cavalry brigade were sent to West Tennessee to destroy Union communications and their means of obtaining supplies via the railways and bridges. Forrest’s troops were very successful in this goal and at the end of December they headed east towards the Tennessee River, stopping five miles north of Parker’s Crossroads.
The Union forces saw an opportunity to capture Forrest. Colonel Cyrus Dunham and his brigade of 1,500 men were sent south to stop the Confederates. On his march south, Col Dunham sent word to Gen Sullivan and Col Fuller to join him at Parker’s Crossroads.
The armies first met at Hick’s Field where Forrest’s artillery and dismounted cavalry forced Dunham’s men to retreat to Parker’s House at the crossroads.
Hick's Field
Parker’s Crossroads was named after the Reverend John Parker whose home was built at the crossroads. Reverend Parker was a Union supporter but when Gen Dunham set-up his artillery in front of the Parker home, the reverend was not pleased and told him to move. The soldiers did not move and consequently, the Parker home was destroyed in the battle. After this, Rev Parker became a Confederate supporter. His deathbed wish was “to be buried with my feet to the north – my head to the south, so that when the angel Gabriel sounds his trumpet, I can rise and kick the Yankees back north!” In the cemetery, the graves of Rev Parker and his wife are the only two lying north/south. Every other grave lies east/west.
There were a few skirmishes in various places around the village. At one point, the Union forces retreated to a meadow and took cover behind a split rail fence.
Probably a mistake as it was reported that many soldiers were killed or wounded by pieces of flying wood after the big guns blasted the fence. The Union soldiers were in a pretty precarious position when Forrest demanded an unconditional surrender but Dunham refused and swore to continue fighting. At a very critical moment, Fuller and his entire Ohio Brigade arrived from the north, placing the Confederate army between two Union brigades. Forrest thundered the famous order, “Charge ‘em both ways!” He and 75 men managed to escape. So the Union side claimed the battle as their win but the significant damage done by Forrest’s men was instrumental in keeping Vicksburg under Confederate control for another six months.
At the split-rail fence site, there is an old Union Burial Ground where the Union dead were initially buried. In July 1867, the bodies of 30 union soldiers were relocated to the National Cemetery in Corinth, Mississippi. That is all but one lone soldier who was missed and who is still buried there. This grave was discovered by an archeological dig in 1994.
As I walked along the fence to the burial site, I heard a lovely bird singing and saw him perched on one of the fence posts. He was a brilliant glowing red (not a Cardinal) and just singing away in the sunshine. My friend Mary Lou told me about an app called Merlin that helps to identify birds by their song, where they are and how they look. I’ve had some fun with the app. So, I looked him up and found out he’s a Summer Tanager. My picture isn’t great. As soon as I got close enough, he flew away, of course. I did find a picture on the internet though, this lovely bird was luminous.
A great lunch at Parkers Crossing
Aside:
This picture was on the brochure of the campground at Parkers Crossing. I spotted it immediately as I follow KYD (Keep Your Daydream). They used this bus to tour Route 66 and then donated it to the RV museum in Elkhart Indiana. We visited the museum on an earlier trip.
Monterey
A search for coffee roasters leads to guitars:
Near Monterey, TN we found a beautiful campground called Spacious Skies – Belle Ridge. This place has two waterfalls, a gazebo with a spectacular view overlooking the mountains and a natural rock pond for swimming. The sites are large and terraced into the hillside.
I was once again hoping for cooler weather and tolerable humidity and again I was disappointed. Know why? Yup, that night there was another tornado warning and we heard the sirens from Monterey. Ashley the administrator was busy calling all the campers to advise them to take shelter in the washhouse. Once again, we went into the seek shelter mode, grabbed our stuff and Misty and headed out, only we didn’t know where to go and it was very dark. We hadn’t checked out the grounds as yet and when we saw lights and activity at the office we went there. Ashley and her family were there along with their dog. Misty didn’t mind the dog but it seems the dog was agitated by her. They stayed in the TV room and we went to the store area. It wasn’t long before the all clear happened.
The warning systems worked well with audible attention alerts on our phones, and sirens from the town about a kilometre away.
The weather cleared and cooled after the storm, it was lovely. We bicycled into town and had breakfast at a very nice café called Lovely Brew. The women working there gave us the low down on the goings on in Monterey, like don’t bother with the farmer’s market it’s really just a flea market and it’s better to shop in Cookeville – much more selection.
On Saturday, the camp offered a tie-dyeing activity. Of course we went and had lots of fun. Spacious Skies is a fairly new chain of campgrounds. They are purchasing older places and refurbishing the sites. On Saturday, the company had hired a photographer to take photos for their marketing materials. He was there at the tie-dyeing and later at a campfire where we roasted marshmallows and made smores.
I had hoped to swim in the rock pond but the storms had water gushing into the pond and stirred up the water so much it was just mud. Too bad because Ashley told us it is usually so clear you can see fish.
It was truly a lovely campground and we enjoyed our stay there – after the tornado passed.
So long for now.
Take care all.
Love from,
Jerry, Elizabeth, Misty, FJ (Flat Jesus), the Guys, Miss Adventure Too and Clifford the Big Red Truck
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