Natchez Trace Parkway: Meriwether Lewis - June 23rd to 25th, 2023
Natchez Trace is a National Parkway which follows an historical foot path from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee. It is 444 miles long, crossing through three states. This post is the first of four posts on the Natchez Trace, covering Mileposts 444 to 385, the northern terminus to Meriwether Lewis Campground.
Friday we left Cedars of Lebanon State Park and started our drive down Natchez Trace Parkway. The historical foot path was used by American Indians. It was also the return path for “Kaintucks” who floated their wares down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers on flatboats to the markets in Natchez and New Orleans, selling all their goods including their boats before taking about 35 days to walk back. The need for the Natchez Trace dwindled as steam boats, stagecoach lines, and railroads stepped in to fulfill those needs.
Construction for the parkway began in 1939, but wasn’t completed until 2005. The parkway itself is a popular bike route. The speed limit is only 50 mph or less and no commercial vehicles are allowed. However, Natchez Trace still has one of the highest number of deaths for a national park unit, with vehicle crashes being the majority of those fatalities (Americas Deadliest National Parks Data).
We’re driving the 444 miles of the parkway starting at milepost 444, near Nashville, and heading south. The first stretch for us was only to mile marker 385, where we stopped to camp at Meriwether Lewis Campground. Along the way, we stopped at several sights. These included the Birdsong Hollow Double Arch Bridge, the War of 1812 Memorial, the Gordon House, Jackson Falls, the Tobacco Farm, and the falls at Fall Hollow.
We reached the campground in time for a late lunch. Meriwether Lewis Campground, run by the National Park Service, is a free, first come/first serve campground, so we wanted to arrive early to make sure we got a spot. At 1:30 pm on a Friday, there were still a little less than a dozen spots open. The sites are nicely spaced in the woods. Our site was fairly level, with a lovely view down into a wooded glen. Each site has a picnic table and fire pit. There is a bathhouse with flush toilets, but no hot water nor showers. Trash cans and drinking fountains are provided, but there are no dump stations nor places to fill up fresh water tanks. Not bad for free!
There was also a campground host. Our host Lucinda was formerly a park ranger for the National Park Service, but currently is just a volunteer. She let us know that she would be doing a presentation that evening and a different one the following night, on Saturday.
We normally like to take care of chores, like grocery shopping and getting gas, on travel days. Since we wanted to arrive at the campground early, we waited until after we picked out our site and ate lunch before heading into town to shop. There was no check-in or other indication that we were occupying the site, so we put out our picnic table cloth, set out our camp chairs and our camp sign. It made us a little nervous to leave as others may be arriving for the weekend. However, there were no issues. The campground didn’t even fill up by the end of the day.
After grocery shopping in the nearby town of Hohenwald, we stopped in a little ice cream shop, Michoacán A Pedir de Boca, for a treat. It is a chain of ice cream shops in both Mexico and the United States. Michoaćan is a state of Mexico. “A Pedir” means “to order” and “de Boca” means “from the mouth”. They have a large selection of flavors of ice cream, frozen yogurt, snow cones, and popsicles. The ice cream we had wasn’t bad, but it did taste a little different. Ann liked the mint chocolate ice cream, but not so much the brownie ice cream. Keith liked his Ferrero Rocher ice cream, but not the caramel ice cream.
That evening, Ann went over to the evening’s presentation, but Keith was too comfortable to get up and walk over. The presentation started with a little National Park trivia game followed by a few videos on a couple of different National Parks and ending with a nice film on Natchez Trace. We like when the campgrounds have evening programs. It seems like COVID and a shortage of staff had put a hold on some of the gatherings, so it was nice to see them starting up again.
Saturday, we hiked some trails over to the Meriwether Lewis Monument and museum. From the campground, we made a loop. A spur trail took us from the campground over to the Swan Creek. Turning right (southeast), we followed alongside the Little Swan Creek. Then it seemed like the trail crossed the creek, but that the trail that crossed the creek was the Old Trace, which joined the Swan Creek Trail for a little bit. We managed to find the Swan Creek Trail again, alongside the creek.
Instead of continuing on Swan Creek, we turned right again (southwest) onto the Old Trace, away from the creek, towards the monument. The Old Trace Trail was a section of the original Natchez Trace, which led us straight to the monument and museum. Meriwether Lewis is buried under the monument. Nearby is the hearthstone remnants of Grinder’s Stand, where Lewis was spending the night when he died from two gun shot wounds, October 10, 1809. It is still unknown as to what exactly happened, but it is believed Lewis committed suicide.
Adjacent to the ruins of Grinder’s Stand is a cabin that was built in 1935. The cabin is now being used to house a museum about Meriwether Lewis’s life. After visiting the museum, we ate our snack at nearby picnic tables. Then we used the nearby restrooms and water fill station before starting back to the campground. Near the restrooms is also a bike repair station, with just about any tool you could possibly need while cycling the parkway.
From there, we headed back along the Old Trace until we reached a junction where a trail led off to the left (west) that went to Dyestone Hollow. The trail followed alongside another little stream before reaching Little Swan Creek. At the junction, there is a camping area, at the end of Monument Road. We noticed that Monument Road was barricaded and closed when we arrived at the campground the day before. However, there was a group camping there, with plenty of gear and tents set up. Nobody was around, but a trailer parked there had a Southeast Conservation Corp symbol on it. The day before, when we stopped at the Gordon House, we noticed a group from the Conservation Corp. Perhaps those were the ones camped at Meriwether Lewis. We’re not sure what type of work they were doing in the area. Our guess is they were doing trail maintenance. Thank you for your efforts.
The trail then turned to follow Little Swan Creek. It wasn’t long before we reached the spur to the campground. The loop was an enjoyable hike through the woods, with just enough elevation gain and small creek crossings to make it interesting. The monument sights in the middle of the hike were an added bonus.
Our loop was 6 miles with an elevation gain of 659 feet which we completed in three hours and 20 minutes, including the time we spent at the museum. It was hike number 30 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2023.
After dinner, we went to the evening campground program. This time Keith went, too. One of the other couples there was from Australia. It was nice to get a different perspective on our country.
As we were getting ready for bed, Ann noticed something on her leg and had Keith take a closer look at it. Yup, it was a tick! It had already latched on. She must have picked it up during our hike that day. She was wearing her long hiking pants, but it must have found its way up her pant leg and half way up her calf. Keith pulled out one of our tick remover tools (paid link) and removed the tick. The tool worked like a charm. It was nice to be able to test it out and know how easily it works. However, we would rather not get ticks in the first place. It was just a reminder that we should check ourselves thoroughly after a hike.
Sunday was a chill day for us; or rather a hot day. We just hung out around the campground and relaxed. The temperatures got up into the 90’s with a heat index in the 100’s. We didn’t have electrical hookups, so we couldn’t run our air conditioner, but all of our fans kept us somewhat comfortable. In addition to the ceiling fan, we have three small DC fans that do a pretty good job. One is in the dinette area and the other two are in the bedroom. Having air blowing directly on your body makes a big difference.
We alternated between sitting outside and sitting inside. Our campsite was in the shade, so sitting outside was nice when the breeze was blowing. However, we were sitting under hickory trees, so when the breeze was blowing the nuts were falling. The hickory nuts made a loud sound when they hit the roof of Red Tail. It made us a little nervous as we envisioned a nut landing on our heads. There was even one time that one landed right on Keith’s camp chair. Luckily, he wasn’t sitting in it at the time. We thought about putting the awning out for our protection, but we were concerned the falling nuts might damage it. I guess that lets you know where our priorities are. We’re more concerned about damaging our awning than damaging our heads.
We had the Thermacell (paid link) outside with us most of the time. The bugs were not too bad, but there was a time when the biting flies found Ann’s legs. She was editing on her laptop at the time, with an external hard drive attached. She didn’t want to jerk the hard drive trying to fend off the flies, being concerned about corrupting the drive. That was when she gave up and went inside.
We both took showers in Red Tail right before going to bed so we didn’t feel “sticky” anymore. Our hair was still wet and helped keep us cool. The temps cooled down at night so we were comfortable sleeping with the fans blowing on us. By morning, we had our full covers on.
The first section of the Natchez Trace was not spectacular, but very pleasant. The parkway is a lovely drive, with a few sights to see along the way. We found ourselves starting to piece together the history of the area.
Check out our related video: Natchez Trace Parkway: Meriwether Lewis
(Ann)