The Event ~ Christmas on the Mississippi!

Christmas 2016.  This Christmas, none of the kids were coming home.  This was the year for them to go to the other side of the families.  We are on an every other year cycle for family Christmas gatherings.

So Tim and I decided to do something different ~ just the two of us.  A few years ago Tim mentioned that he would like to cruise the Mississippi River.  The American Queen Riverboat Cruise brochure came in the mail with discounted rates for the Christmas season.  It didn’t take me long to reserve our spot on the river cruise from New Orleans Louisiana to Memphis Tennessee. For seven days December 20 – 26.

Airline reservations were made for an extra day on each end so we could tour New Orleans at the beginning and Memphis and Elvis Presley’s Graceland at the end.  The relaxing cruise was exceptional.  The weather was perfect – no jackets needed, and the river so calm.  The civil war history along the river was interesting, as was the Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn story, and the beautiful plantations along the way.  

We did short bus tours through little towns along the way.  One toy museum had a couple dolls that looked so real and lifelike and looked like Penny.

 We visited Civil War museums, the original Coke museum, a distillery, and other places of interest.

 

This is a river cruise I could easily repeat, but would like to do the Columbia River  through Washington and Idaho states, and also the Northern half of the Mississippi.

 I thought the above picture was very interesting out our airplane window, flying over the Midwest crop lands in winter time.  Fields of snow and bare fields created a very beautiful real estate quilt.