American History Road Trip

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and Walmart Family Mobile. All opinions are mine alone. #Save4Summer #CollectiveBias

Yesterday I mentioned that we just got back from a week long vacation. My husband is a history buff and he planned our whole trip along the Natchez Trace Parkway. We started at mile 1 in Natchez, Mississippi and drove the entire 444 mile parkway, ending in Nashville, Tennessee.  With plenty of stops along the way. My husband is a history buff and that was just what we needed for this American history road trip.

One of our first stops was at the Vicksburg National Military Park, where a Civil War battle was fought. The twins are studying American History through the Civil War next year, so this was a great opportunity for them. There are monuments for each state that fought in that battle at the park, the Illinois State Monument is exceptionally impressive.

We also made sure to stop and enjoy some scenery that is quite different from what we have at home. I loved this cypress swamp not too far north of Jackson, Mississippi. I told Oldest Twin that maybe fairies lived there, he didn’t agree. But it was a beautiful (and short) walk through the swamp.

The Natchez Trace Parkway is also the site of several Native American burial grounds. We were able to stop at look at several of them.

Continuing we took a slight detour from the Trace to visit the Shiloh National Military Park, and the site of another Civil War battle. Littlest was crazy for canons. He loved having me read the plaques to him that talked about the different kinds and what they were used for. At this particular spot at Shiloh there were dozens of canons all in a row and I thought that Littlest might never get back in the car.

Did I mention that we were camping throughout our trip? We spent 6 nights in our tent, at three different locations. We camped at the Rocky Springs, Jeff Busby, and Merriwether Lewis campsites. Best of all, camping along the Natchez Trace Parkway is free. (And I discovered some great tips for longer camping that I will be sharing soon!)

We spent most of our days out exploring, only returning to the campsite at night to cook and eat dinner. But we spent a lot of time in the car and I shared some of the boys favorite road trip apps yesterday. Luckily the boys have a great cell phone from Walmart Family Mobile, with a low priced unlimited talk, text, and data/web plan. It’s just $29.88/month (for the first line) which includes up to 1G of 4G LTE data. I cannot even articulate how much I love that their phone bill is the same every single month, no matter how much they use their phone. And we were able to get them the ZTE ZMAX for $179.00.

Disclaimer: All prices for phones and plans included in this post are accurate as of the date of posting; however, these prices are subject to change. Please refer to http://cbi.as/dkuo or your local Walmart for current pricing. 

Reaching the end of our trip we spent our last full vacation day in Nashville. The highlight there for me was visiting their replica Parthenon, complete with a statue (42 feet tall) of Athena. (The kids all thought it was cool that a movie was filmed inside the building.) And of course, we had to make at least a short stop to see the Grand Ole Opry House.

Saving money on things like phone bills with Walmart Family Mobile makes planning, and taking, summer vacations so much easier. What are your summer plans and how will you save? Leave a comment and let me know!