2005/04 Deep South trip - Natchez Trace |
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Thursday April 7th
Thursday was a grey and rainy day, OK for a day of travel. We were headed south across Kentucky back into Tennessee. We passed Bowling Green, famous as the home of the Everley Brothers and of Chevrolet’s Corvette factory, and then Nashville, home of the Grand Ole Opry. Nashville was dark and wet beneath a looming giant thunderstorm.
Just south of Nashville, we joined the Natchez Trace parkway. The parkway goes all the way south to Natchez on the Mississippi, about 450 miles. The “Trace” was a trail used by farmers back in the early 1800s. They’d transport their goods from the Tennessee River Valley down the Mississippi to Natchez by raft, and then sell everything, including the raft, and ride or walk back home along the Trace. There were of course some local bandits who’d try to take their money along the way, and some inns called “stands” that would provide food, lodging, and entertainment. Eventually, the new Mississippi and Ohio riverboats put the Trace out of business and most evidence crumbled away except for the trail itself.
The parkway closely follows the original route and is a very pleasant 450-mile drive through the forest, with no commercial vehicles or towns or stores or traffic lights. Building started twenty years ago and it’s due to be completed next month as the last twenty miles or so at the southerly end are completed. It’s very popular with the wild turkeys, which seem to love the mowed verges. At this time of year the trees are only just starting to green up but the redbud trees are in full flower, as on the front cover, a pink border for miles.
We pulled into the Meriwether Lewis campground, one of the three free sites on the parkway. It was nearly full and the only reason we got in was that we could fit where the big fifth wheel trailers and buses couldn’t. Most of the residents were Canadians, presumably on their way back to Quebec and Ontario, snowbirds returning home. We seemed to be 
the only campers heading south.
We had traveled out of the storm and it was a warm and sunny evening. We hiked down through the forest to Little Swan Creek, a pretty area with lots of rushing streams and a carpet of tiny wildflowers. From our experiences on the trail I’d say that one of the Natchez Trace’s major problems was mud, lots of mud.