The Natchez Trace

The best part of the Natchez Trace was walking along the same trail that early Americans walked along between Nashville and Natchez.  I tried to imagine what it would have been like to walk purposefully from one town to another hundreds of years ago.  I'm not sure I totally captured it, but I'm sure there would have been fewer people calling out from behind, "Walking?  Why do we have to walk?"

Our first stop on the trail was where Meriwether Lewis spent his last night.  That story was fresh in our minds from studying the Lewis & Clark expedition last year.  Lewis was heading to Natchez to go to DC via boat.  He changed his mind mid-way, deciding the Corps of Discovery documents he was carrying would be safer traveled by foot.  He stopped here for the night.  It is the Grinder House, one of the houses spaced a day's walk from each other on the Trail to give travelers a bed for the night.

Lewis died here, presumably by his own hand.  His remains were discovered there about 40 years later.  A monument marks his grave site now.

We made other stops along the trail. We walked along a swamp and wondered at natures marvelous adaptations.  Some of us wondered why Mom was asking so many questions.  ("Honey, it is roadschooling.")

We made a stop at Mounds built thousands of years ago by the great-great-great-great-great  grand natives of the Native American Woodland people.  They built the mounds to honor their dead.  Imagine a monument that lasts 8,000 years -- a great mound of earth.

The Natchez Trace parkway crossing the Tennessee River in Cherokee, AL.

Memorable times on the Natchez Trace.