Shiloh, stop 1: Corinth, MS

John and I put our heads together on Friday evening and started researching our options. The options were looking slim and while there were attractions we could see, there wasn't anything we were super excited about.


Then, on a whim, I looked up how far it would be to the Shiloh, TN Civil War battlefield. It was only 1.5 hours away. Shiloh is one of those places that might make John's top desired places to see (in the United States). This was far more exciting and we did discuss other options before finally coming back to Shiloh. It was going to be a big undertaking with 3 youngish kids, but it was something we were excited to try.

We got going up early in the morning so we could arrive in time to get some looking around done. We packed up some lunches so we wouldn't have to search out lunch in the middle of the day (in hindsight, this was absolutely necessary as there was nothing in the park and little close by).

We hit the road early and prepped the kids for the kind of day we were having. One reason our kids travel so well is I work hard to let them know a rough schedule and what the expectations were going to be. This kind of day was going to be a little drive, some really interesting history to look at and check out and then more driving. Good listening and behavior were going to earn cookies and chips for lunch. Good behavior after lunch would earn extra electronic time in the car on the way home.

The plan was to picnic at Shiloh and leave there around 4ish in order to eat dinner in nearby Mississippi.

We programmed Shiloh national monument into our gps and headed down the road. It didn't take us the way I thought it would, but the gps has rarely steered is wrong.

When we pulled up, it appeared we had arrived at the Corinth, Mississippi Shiloh national monument. Prior to arriving, neither John or I had any idea it existed.

It turned out to be a very interesting sight with several interesting exhibits. I doubt that if we had arrived at the larger Shiloh monument first that we would have gone back to check this out. This turned out to be a very happy accident. Although it put our timing off, we enjoyed this site and learned quite a bit.

After a short visit, we were back on track and drove the 30 minutes to the Tennessee Shiloh national monument.