BUCKET LIST UPDATE No. 322: Visit Vicksburg, Mississippi

One of the many cannons on display in Vicksburg, Miss.

Vicksburg, Mississippi is one of the most historic cities in the Southeastern United States, and while I’d been through there a couple of times by car, I couldn’t honestly say that I’d ever set foot in Vicksburg. This city played a vital role in the Civil War, and being a huge Civil War enthusiast, it irked me that I couldn’t honestly say that I’d been to Vicksburg. For that reason, I put “Visit Vicksburg, Mississippi” on my “bucket list” several years ago.

My wife and I celebrated our 14^th wedding anniversary by taking a daytrip to Vicksburg on Sat., March 4. We got up early, left the house around 5 a.m. and made the five-hour drive to Vicksburg, which is located on the banks of the Mississippi River, on the Mississippi-Louisiana state line. We got there around 10 a.m.

Right before we crossed the river, we got off the interstate and took the main street, Washington Street, that leads through downtown Vicksburg. We rode the entire length of the street, and stopped to look around in the Levee Street Marketplace, which is a pretty cool antique and knickknack store. We then rode up to the Waterview Casino and looked around for a few minutes.

While riding around, we also noticed a number of Civil War cannon displays, and we pulled into one that you could drive around. The location looked out of the river, and we parked for a good look around. We checked out the informational sign there, and then climbed to the top of the cannon emplacement there.

Around noon, we ate lunch at the 10 South Rooftop Bar & Grill, which was on the tenth floor of an old bank building in downtown Vicksburg. The food there was really good as was the view. From there, we had a sweeping view of downtown Vicksburg, the river and the surrounding countryside.

We then walked up and down Washington Street, going in and out of shops. We stopped to get ice cream from the Biedenhamarn Coca-Cola Museum, where Coke was first bottled. Later, we browsed around inside Lorelei Books, the city’s premiere bookstore.

Not long after that, we cooled our heels inside the Big Muddy restaurant, where we enjoyed some fried green tomatoes. After that, we hopped back in the truck, drove back toward the interstate and checked out the Visitors Center, who had areas where tourists could take neat photos of the bridges that cross the Mississippi River at that point. After that, we walked the short distance over to another artillery battery that looked out from a bluff over the river.

From there, we drove over to the Ameristar Casino, which looks like a big, old-fashioned paddlewheel steamboat. We walked around in there for a while and even dropped a few dollars in a couple of the slot machines. After about an hour there, we decided it was time to go eat supper.

We drove back down Washington Street to the old part of the city, parked and walked to a restaurant called Monsours at the Biscuit Co. The food there filled us up and got us ready for our next adventure, a haunted history tour led by Morgan Gates, who has appeared on the TV show, “Ghost Adventures” with Zack Bagans. The walking tour took about 90 minutes to complete and took us in and around a number of spooky sites in the city’s downtown area.

Rather than spend the night, we decided to head back home. We got back in the truck around 10 p.m., stopped once for gas and got home a few minutes after 2 a.m. It was a long day, but we had a lot of fun.

In the end, how many of you have been to Vicksburg? What did you think about it? What other Vicksburg sites would you recommend visiting? Let us know in the comments section below.