Natchez Trace Parkway

A sunken section of the original Natchez Trace

March 18-20: Beginning our northward trek toward home we followed the Natchez Trace Parkway, which runs between Natchez, MS and Nashville, TN; this parkway is a federal park, which is described on the web site for the park as: "a 444-mile drive through exceptional scenery and 10,000 years of North American history.  Used by American Indians, "Kaintucks", settlers, and future presidents, the Old Trace played an important role in American history. "  


Along the current parkway are numerous stops of historical interest, including Emerald Mound, one of the largest known Indian Mounds in the US, various "stands", homes where the foot-travelers of old could spend the night in a bed or on a porch, temporarily safe from the dangers of the trail, and various sections of the original Trace, where one can walk for a way in the steps of many earlier travelers - literally walking on / in history. 


Also along the parkway is the Meriwether Lewis site, which contains a memorial to Meriwether Lewis which we also visited. While these various stops along the way provide food for thought, the parkway itself provides food for the soul. 

Wisteria Bloom

Dogwood

Wisteria Vines 20-30ft tall in trees

Travel is slow (maximum speed limit is 50mph) along a winding two-lane road that permits no commercial traffic allowing plenty of opportunity to savor the beauty of this park.  Along either side of the road are mowed areas, now filled with early spring wildflowers: great swaths of crimson clover, purple and blue violets, white and yellow flowers that I could not identify while driving past;  beautiful old trees, hung with spanish moss in the early parts of the Trace near Natchez, approaching Nashville toward the end of the Trace hung with incredible, huge (20-30 foot high) wisteria vines in full bloom, their purple panicles looking like frosted grapes hanging in the trees; redbud and dogwood trees blooming in abundance along the entire parkway. 

Dogwood

Redbud in bloom