All in all, it was a great trip. I’m glad that I won’t have to drive through Texas again (we did it last winter for our Texas roadtrip and the summer before that for our post-wedding trip through the South) – and that was enough. It was interesting to see another part of the country (you’re up next New England!), though I am yearning for some large, wilderness parks.

• Most surprising unit: Vicksburg National Military Park
• Most disappointing unit: Chalmette Battlefield (or New Orleans Jazz NHP)
• Unforgettable memory: New Years Eve in the French Quarter
• Forgettable memory: having a dead car battery on Christmas Eve at a New Mexico rest area
• Best food: Oceana, just off Bourbon Street. We ate there consecutive nights.
• Worst food: Chuy’s restaurant in Van Horn, Texas.
• If we would have had more time: we would done walking history tour of New Orleans
• Best part of the trip: spending it with Kim

National Park Service units we visited (9 new, 2 repeat visits):

• Big Thicket National Preserve (TX)
• Cane River Creole National Historic Park (LA)
• Poverty Point National Monument (LA)
• Natchez Trace Parkway (MS)
• Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail (MS)
• Vicksburg National Military Park (MS)
• Natchez National Historic Park (MS)
• New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park (LA)
• Jean Lafitte National Historic Park (LA)
• Jean Lafitte National Preserve (LA)
• Fort Bowie National Historic Site (AZ)

Blog posts on scottandkimmie.com:

• An inauspicious start
• Christmas driving, Riverwalk, and the Negotiator
• The plantations of the Cane River Lake
• Poverty Point and Vicksburg
• Driving the Natchez Trace and touring an antebellum mansion
• Ringing in the New Year in NOLA

Blog posts here on rscottjones.com:

• An inauspicious start to the roadtrip
• More thoughts on Big Thicket, Cane River Creole, Poverty Point, and Vicksburg
• Thoughts on New Years Eve in the French Quarter of NOLA
• This just in: John Madden has terrible taste

Some final random thoughts:

• Natchez Trace Parkway is full of really cool stuff and it’s a nice drive too. I definitely recommend some time along it.
• Jean Lafitte National Historic Park & Preserve is one of the more diverse units in the system. It contains several cultural centers, a prime French Quarter visitor center, the Chalmette Battlefield and the Barataria Preserve. Not bad for a relatively obscure park.
• Vicksburg National Military Park could do with a more reasonably priced auto tour drive – or at least allow visitors to borrow it for the tour (Lyndon Johnson National Historic Park did this well).

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There have been a few of these places along the way. George Rogers Clark National Historic Park’s huge granite memorial, which clearly deserved to be the central attraction of a major city but was instead plopped down seemingly nowhere. The visitor center at Brown vs Board of Education National Historic Site, which stands as the most emotionally moving I’ve seen. The incredibly high tree canopy of Congaree National Park, the largest remnant of an old growth floodplain forest on the continent, which seems tucked away in South Carolina. And so forth.

Add to that list Vicksburg National Military Park. Well, at least two components of it. I was greatly impressed with the Illinois Monument, which reminded me a bit of both the archives building and the George Rogers Clark memorial I mentioned above. And I was completely caught off guard by the USS Cairo (pronounced KAY-row). I remember seeing a picture of an armor-clad Civil War battleship back in school, but had no idea that we were going to see one until we turned the corner on the driving tour. Both unleashed those unexpected fleeting moments of excitement when you first realize that there’s something much cooler to this place than you had anticipated. The thrill of discovery, you might call it.

Touring the national parks has focused our attention on learning more about the country in which we live; experiencing, at least within a narrow focus, some of what it’s meant to be American or experience a bit of America.

There have been a few disappointing parks we’ve visited, but it’s always because we wanted to learn more than the park has resources to provide. And even in those disappointments, we gain a new understanding of the natural or cultural heritage that we must continue to protect.

But most of the time, we walk away excited and awed by some magnificent fact or memorable experience of a place we may not ever had taken the trouble to see. It’s these kinds of pleasant surprises that energize me through the year in protecting a new set of worthy places.

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First, we’ve seen two units – Big Thicket National Preserve and Cane River Creole National Historic Park – that really whiffed on interpretation opportunities. I’ve never seen a less useful trail guide – the numbered signs seemed completely unrelated to the booklet descriptions – in Big Thicket. Isn’t wasn’t like the trail guide didn’t have any useful information; the book just didn’t mesh with what you were looking at on trail.

While I admittedly missed the tour of the main house at Cane River, the rest of the buildings lacked any sort of context of its inhabitants. There were so many times when we thought, “I’d love to know more about this,” but there was precious little to read or listen to. I know it’s a new unit, but it’s sorely lacking.

Second, cell phone tours are for real. Both Cane River and Vicksburg utilize the new technology, which entails you dialing a dedicated phone number for a park and then entering a stop number to listen to a prerecorded blurb. I’d still prefer to see more written information, but it’s a good start – as long as you have cell coverage, of course.

Along those same lines, I’d love to see parks like Vicksburg provide a more detailed CD and MP3 driving tour for free or even for rent. The park offered a CD for $12 and a CD-ROM for $30. There’s not enough interpretation along the way (the cell phone tours were decent, but the interp signs were among the worst I’ve seen). Check out Lyndon B Johnson National Historic Park for how to do this.

Poverty Point is one of those National Park Service units that shouldn’t be one. If the state wants it, that’s fine; but it shouldn’t be called a National Monument or be on the NPS official unit list if there’s absolutely no mention of the park service or its national monument status. Also, nice job on recreating in model form near the visitor center, but I would have loved to see the site from the observation tower you apparently had at some point in the past. Note: if you’re going to tear down something like that, please update your brochures so I don’t know what I’m missing.

Finally, in a slightly unrelated note, I’d like to pass along the lesson I’ve come to on several recent trips but always seem to fail to live. Don’t skimp too much on hotels. Sometimes, just a few dollars can make all the difference in how much you enjoy your trip. Instead of trying to save the cash, spend it. Just make sure you always overestimate hotel costs when you’re doing your trip budgeting.

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