Our first stop heading towards the Natchez Trace was the Shiloh Battlefield at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. Over 110,000 combatants clashed here in April 1862. When the two days of back and forth fighting were over more than 23,700 casualties occurred surpassing the totals of all of America’s previous wars combined. General Albert Sydney Johnston became the highest ranking officer north or south to die in battle. The Southern army never recovered from the loss. Losing here severed the Memphis to Atlanta rail junction at Corinth.
Leaving in a somber mood our destination was Piney Grove Recreation Area on Bay Springs Lake which is a part of the Tom Bigbee waterway. It was raining most of the night and the passing tugs pushed barges up and down the lake while their huge diesel engines made a steady deep drumming sound like the distant report of far off 18th century artillery.
The next morning we joined the Natchez Trace around mile marker 297. The Trace ran (runs) almost 450 miles from the Mississippi River at Natchez, MS. to Nashville, TN. It is hard to come up with a similar stretch of roadway that is this historic and beautiful. Even though it only averages 800 yards in width the driving experience is like a byway wormhole where you have left the time space continuum.
The old trace is visible in many places along the way and serves to demonstrate the sunken road which moved travelers, traders, and armies along its path for several millennia. There are places where the dead were buried adjacent to the roadbed with the headstones facing towards the road instead of the burial.
There are Indian mound villages from the Hopewellian era all along the way. Emerald Mound is the second largest Mississipian earthen mound in North America and housed the Great Sun ruler of the Late Woodland period. The amount of dirt moved for this project, one basket at time is staggering to behold.
Our next night was a stay at the French Camp Bed and Breakfast Inn. The Burford cabin, a mid 1800’s dogtrot log house, was relocated here from West Point, MS.
As the K2R2 rolled along passing frost, cypress swamps and waterfalls, Christmas music filled the air.
Later driving down US 61, aka as the river road, we passed into Louisiana at St. Francisville. We crossed the Mississippi River on the new John James Audubon bridge at New Roads, LA. At 1,583 feet it is the second longest cable span between towers for a bridge in the Western Hemisphere.
We then headed to Chicot State Park for a couple of nights and were delighted by the park’s Christmas spirit!
We rolled back in to Texas stopping at Martin Dies Jr. State Park for a night before wrapping up another year of travel in the K2R2!
One Response
Only in America! I highly doubt there is any other place in the world with those kinds of preserved and historical landmarks along with scenic routes and parks and forests like we have. Thanks for sharing all the pictures