Going the Natchez Trace Way

Are we on a roll or what?! Three posts in a week? I blame it on the weather. With the official transition from summer to fall, Nashville has seen a delightful cooling in temperature while maintaining mostly sunny skies and minimal precipitation. We're talking about highs in the 70's and lows in the 40's and 50's. Is that not the perfect weather to be spending as much time as possible outdoors? If this isn't, then I don't know what is. In addition to the wonderful weather, Heather and I have been missing all of our wonderful family and friends back home lately. Contributing to this blog on a more regular basis seems like a nice way to "connect" with whomever may come across it on any given week. We hope this finds you all well! We also hope you all are enjoying reading it as much as we are enjoying thinking about you as we write it.

So in the words of the great John Wayne in McClintock, "Lets get to the rat killin'."

For the past few months, Heather has had her eye on the Natchez Trace Parkway. It is a 444-mile long scenic road that extends North-South from Nashville into southern Mississippi. There are many historical sites along this road, and it is meticulously maintained by the National Park Service.

This beautiful bridge was pretty impressive and was our first stop on our drive. The bridge is a concrete double arch design with a span of 1,572 feet and a road height of 145 feet above the green valley below. We drove as slowly as possible across the bridge so we could soak in the great view!

I should say that this drive, like most in Tennessee, was full of wonderful scenes of densely wooded deciduous trees. While Tennessee is fairly plain looking in the winter months due to its lack of evergreens, I think it can hang with the best of them when it comes to autumn foliage. When the entire state is covered in oak, hickory, ash, and maple trees, the turning of leaves essentially changes the entire landscape. If any of you are wanting to visit Tennessee at its most beautiful, you may want to consider coming in early November. The leaves have just barely started to turn, but we could tell during our drive this weekend that things are about to get really scenic around here!


In the interest of keeping this post to a one-sitting length, I'll just briefly mention a few of the stops we made along the 50 or so miles of the Trace that we covered on this trip. Now I know that my parents have hiked up around the continental divide (which separates the water flow of the continental United States - rivers to the west flow to the Pacific, rivers to the east flow to the Gulf and Atlantic). Well, I'm pleased to announce that Heather and I have been to the great Tennessee Valley Divide! Rivers to its east flow into the Tennessee River, and rivers to the west flow into the Cumberland. Ok, ok. Maybe its no where near as impressive as the continental divide, but it definitely made us think of you! Another stop was the site of an old tobacco farm. Neither Heather or I have seen how tobacco is grown, but I know that it involves some amount of aging in tall barns before being shipped out for processing. The tobacco leaves can be quite long (3-6 feet or so), so we were hoping that this stop would actually be at a working farm, or at least a display of the different stages of cultivation and aging. Nope! Just a small barn with one row of hanging fresh tobacco leaves, and a gravel road that took you no where. Oh well!

Here's a shot of Heather inside the barn, admiring the tobacco leaves

Not a bad view from the tobacco "farm"!

As always, feel free to click on the pictures to get a larger view!

Here's a shot from another nice outlook.

The highlight of our trip, aside from the great scenery along the way, was a place called Jackson Falls. Here's a short video of me explaining a bit about it!

What I didn't mention in this video is why the water is no longer flowing here. Apparently a large storm led to some flooding which eroded the river banks and redirected the water flow.

And that's about all I have to say about that! I'll leave you with a few more pictures from the Trace.

Stay tuned this coming week for a post on my newest hobby!

Until next time,
Tim & Heather