Following Nevada Barr

       Rick may seem to many folks like a pretty quiet guy, but put him in a campground and he attracts chatty folks like the smell of a steak on the grill.   I think that sometimes folks are tired of talking to their travel companion and leap out of their RV when they see a nice, smiling face.  This is great, but Rick seems to attract the “talkers.”  Folks who just don’t know when to quit.  Today he went off to take a picture of a tree with nice pink flowers.  I saw these flowing trees along the road but couldn’t get close to one. (I finally got close to one of the blooming magnolias)   Rick found one in the campground along with a lovely older lady who chatted him up for about 40 minutes.  And you thought that Carter got his chatty nature from me?

     We drove more of the Trace today.  We did not make it all the way to Natchez, but within 15 miles of the end of the 444 mile drive.  It was a lovely, sunny, and a bit warmer today.  I was excited because the last section of the Parkway was most discussed in the Nevada Barr novel that got me initially interested in visiting this park.  In many areas the trees came up close to the road.  In one of these areas two grey foxes crossed just ahead of us.  They were beautiful.  All along we have been seeing hawks soaring above the Trace.  Today we saw one very close to our windshield and discovered that they are Turkey Vultures, not hawks.  Not very pretty up close.

     We stopped at Rocky Springs which was a town of a couple thousand people until erosion, the boll weevil, and the Civil War caused most of the families to move away.  We walked a path to see the foundations of some of the old houses, a cistern, a couple of old safes (they must have been too heavy to move), and an old church and graveyard still in use.  It was fun to walk around an area with the whispers of ghosts still in the quiet air.  We checked out the campground, which was very small but quite nice.  There were only a couple campers, despite this being the weekend.  This campground played a big part in the novel.

     Our next stop was the “sunken trace.”   Here erosion and heavy use have worn the track down below the rest of the terrain by about 25’.  Again, this was the site of a major scene in the book.   We are seeing many more bicyclists on the road.  There are a number of outfitters who provide support and lunch for groups of cyclists who want to bike a section of the Parkway.  It would make a really nice ride.  There was almost no other traffic on the road.  We love the quiet.

     Just outside of Natchez we stopped at Mount Locust.    This was a 1200 acre farm in 1784.  It was only a day’s walk out of Natchez.  As more and more travelers walked the Trace, the farm owners decided to turn their farm home into a “stand.”  Travelers could spend the night on the porches and get a meal of corn mush and milk.  Although the building has been renovated back to its 1820 appearance by the Park Service, it is one of the oldest structures still standing in the area.  It was  a great spot to finish our tour back into history along the Trace.