First Retirement Ride

On my first Saturday of the first week of retirement, to start this new gig out right, I planned to attend a historian led tour of the assault on the Railroad Redoubt at Vicksburg National Military Park. Since they wanted us to be there at 08:15 I needed to be on the road early. I left the house at 05:00 and headed north.

The weather was great, temperatures were in the upper 60's all the way there. To get there on time I took the go-fast roads of US Hwy 49 and I-20. An advantage of getting up early was getting through Jackson by 07:00, just before the morning rush hour. Note; the I-20 road surface through Jackson is horrible, avoid it if you can. I was early and wandered around a bit before the tour.

The tour was interesting. Not that I didn't already know the history, but his talk did fill in a lot of details. Such as that the majority of the troops on this line were Illinois and some Iowa regiments.

We are standing on the Union lines and the Railroad Redoubt is across the creek on top of that hill. The Confederate forces consisted of regiments from Alabama and Texas. The Texas Monument is on the top of the hill at the Railroad Redoubt. An Iowa Regiment was able to get into the Redoubt, pushing an Alabama Regiment out. But Texas troops counterattacked and drove the Union forces out.

The day of this tour was the same day as the attack, 160 years ago. Afterwards I headed east along I-20 to MS Hwy 22, which has some good sweeping curves, up through Flora and over on Hwy 463 to Madison for lunch. After lunch I headed to my happy place; Barley's Beer Barn in Gluckstadt.

I had a pint while I picked out a variety of beer that I can't get in my area. Also while waiting for RayJ to ride down from his place for a visit. We are planning a big trip for July and talked over some details. We had a good visit and headed out together for home.

We headed east on Yandell Road to Hwy 43 and then south. At Hwy 25 RayJ took a left toward home while I continued down to Pucket. There I usually cut south on Hwy 13 to Mendenhall, but the gps suggested taking Hwy 541 that led down to Magee. Since I had never tried that road before it seemed like a good idea. It was, with more good sweepers and a nice country road down to US Hwy 49. There I zoomed south to the house. A little under 400 miles on the bike and it was an excellent day not in the office. So far, so good.