Natchez Trace Parkway

After exploring the city of Natchez and spending two nights at Natchez State Park, we were eager to start our adventure on the Natchez Trace Parkway.   Beginning in Natchez, Mississippi and ending in Nashville, Tennessee, the Natchez Trace Parkway took 67 years to construct but thousands of years to create the stories.  The National Park Service manages the Parkway and the numerous wayside exhibits, interpretive signs, nature trails and historic and cultural heritage sights along the road. 
 

Along the Natchez Trace

 

 The maximum speed limit is 50 mph so life slows down a bit on the curving two-lane Parkway.  We found it to be a perfect speed to really enjoy the beautiful landscape.  And this time of year the dogwoods, redbuds and spring wildflowers were just magnificent.  The centuries started to fall away and our imaginations began to recreate the past as we followed the footsteps and wagon wheel ruts of native peoples, explorers, trappers, boatmen, mail carriers and militia.

A one-way, 2.5 mile section of the Old Trace accessible to cars

While the Parkway follows the original 'Old Trace' closely, it takes some liberties for a smoother ride.  But there are places where cars can take sections of the original path.  On one of those sections David and I were treated to the sight of a barred owl that flew ahead of us, landed on the Trace and then flew and perched in a tree above us.  There are also sections of the Old Trace that you can hike, 65 miles of it have been designated a National Scenic Trail.  In places the wagon wheel ruts and the mud holes where the wagons bogged down are still visible. 

 

Soft, easily eroded soils called 'loess' make up several sections of the Old Trace.

These sections of the Trace 'sunk' over time with heavy use.

 

'Sunken Trace,' one of those deeply eroded sections of the original Trace

 

If we had stopped at every pull out, taken every trail and explored every town and city along the Natchez Trace, it might have taken a month or more.  Which is approximately how long it took the “Kaintuck” boatmen, who floated their goods down the Mississippi River, to walk back home on the Old Trace after selling everything including the boat in New Orleans.  As it was we spent 5 days along the Natchez Trace learning about our nation’s history and thoroughly enjoying the natural world of a place unspoiled by human blight.

One of the many waterfalls at Falls Hollow

 

 

 

Virginia Worm Rail Fence