Natchez Trace

After leaving Alabama on September 18, I traveled across the state to pick up the Natchez Trace Parkway. I wanted to get as far as the Jeff Busby National Park campground, and because I’d puttered about waiting for the roads to clear of traffic and fog and wetness and then decided to have lunch with Kristina, I was late getting started.

After having some fun with my GPS giving me erroneous directions (mountains do tend to block satellite signals), I arrived at the parkway. Http://www.nps.gov/natt/ For quite a while, it seemed as if I was the only one traveling on it, but commuters began joining the motorcyclists and me. I did see one other RV. I visited quite a few of the historic stops along the way, but was wishing I’d set aside more time for exploration.

I stayed at the Jeff Busby Campground – dedicated to Thomas Jefferson Busby, a local democrat who was elected five times to the United States Congress and was instrumental in getting the trace recognized as a national park. It was so quiet there-definitely no diesel trucks! While hiking there before setting off through Mississippi the next morning I saw this fire ant hill. (While Dave and I were fixing Harvey’s dents, I accidentally sat in an ant hill there, we quickly moved to another spot to continue working. Sure am glad I didn’t meet up with the fire ants.) This mound was a12″ high!

I continued on down the road and encountered many miles of tornado damage from April 2011. While hiking at Jeff Busby, I had seen sheets of roofing in the forest there, no doubt from that tornado. I counted four different spots of the ravaged scene below.

The majority of the parkway that I drove was absolutely beautiful and I would return to do it again.

PS Having trouble with placement of photos.