We haven't had many trip reports on here lately and I miss them. Here is one on an interesting little tour that my wife and I took last week:

Traveling the old Trace
April is the time to travel the old trail from Natchez to Nashville. Traffic is light, the weather is nice, and the wild flowers are in full bloom. Redbud along the Tennessee portion of the Natchez Trace is nothing short of spectacular.

Leaving East Tennessee, we drove down into Georgia, across Alabama, to Natchez, Mississippi. Don't believe the old stereotypes about this area. Mississippi is a beautiful state with great scenery, beautiful homes and friendly people.

We toured Melrose, one of many historic homes in Natchez. The house, built circa 1818, is a two story brick with white columns and slave quarters out back. It belongs to the National Park Service. Our tour guide said that 65% of the furnishings were original and the rest were correct for the period.

Then we made our way to the beginning of the Natchez Trace, a short distance north of town. The trace is an old trail traveled by pioneers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of them were merchants who built flatboats on the Tennessee, Cumberland and Ohio rivers, loaded them with cargo and floated them all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi River. There they sold the cargo, broke up the flatboats and sold them for timber. Finally, with money in their pockets they started for home. It was no wonder that highwaymen preyed on these travelers.

The old trace begins in the lowlands with marshes and bayous. The highway does not follow the original route, but you can see the old trail as it wanders back and forth across the parkway. It is often a sunken pathway worn down by the passage of countless wagons, horses and men on foot. The National Park Service has provided plenty of places to pull off and examine close-up the features of the old trace. There are other interesting features along the way. At one point we walked through a cypress swamp. We visited the grave of Merriweather Lewis, the explorer, and the graves of 13 unknown Confederate soldiers. We saw the sites of Choctaw villages, Indian mounds, pioneer homes, caves and springs. Who knows how many forgotten people are buried only a few steps off the trail.

In the city of Jackson, the Parkway is still under construction, so we left the peaceful 50-mph highway and plunged into heavy freeway traffic for about 20 minutes. It was quite a shock and we were glad to get back to the Parkway where the traffic was leisurely and light. I'm sure there are times when the Parkway is heavily traveled, but in April, we were often the only car in sight.

North of Jackson, the Parkway skirts the edge of Ross Barnett Reservoir that was formed by a dam on the Pearl River. It appears to be almost five miles wide and more than 20 miles long. Also visible from the Parkway are farms and national forest lands. Access is limited and commercial vehicles are not allowed. I don't `remember any "no parking," "no camping" or other "No"signs. Several campgrounds are provided and many pull-offs have picnic tables. The highway itself is often elevated to provide better views, and hills and curves are engineered to allow you to move at a constant speed. I set the cruise at 49 mile per hour and it stayed there most of the trip.

In Tupelo, we visited the Tupelo National Battlefield. It was small, an acre or less, with a monument and two cannons.

At one point we came upon the path of a tornado. It crossed the highway, probably last spring, knocking over large trees. They all fell in the same direction. While there, we saw three deer cross the highway.

On the Tennessee portion of the Parkway we began counting wild turkeys. At first we only saw one or two at a time, but when the count got to almost 30 we saw a flock of ten or twelve. Most were very close to the Parkway. The most common wild life along the road was the common crow. We must have seen several thousand, usually walking across the road or on the shoulder.

Near the end of the trail, in Williamson County, Tennessee there is a spectacular arched bridge. It is so tall and slender as to be almost frightening. After we left the Parkway, we drove under this same bridge and returned home via Interstate 40. We had traveled almost 1500 miles through four states, in five days. But in a way, I guess we had crossed parts of several centuries.

The Starkville Café
One interesting sidelight of the trip was the Starkville Café. We made an overnight stop in Starkville, which is the home of Mississippi State University. The next morning we drove a few blocks to Main Street in the city's historic district. There were a lot of pickups and cars in one block and there in the middle of that block was a café left over from the 1940's. It's my guess that little about the Starkville Café had changed in the last half century. The service was good and the food was excellent. At a nearby table, a group of men were having a breakfast meeting. We decided they might be the city council.

We tend to look for those little downtown cafés. We are seldom disappointed. It stands to reason that if the locals eat there, and the business has survived for decades, they must be doing something right.
Howard