Travel

Adventure 1: NATCHEZ TRACE – Day 4

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2020

The next morning found me waiting sunrise across the street from King’s Tavern standing in the bed of my truck, taking photos of the building. (One thing I discovered doing this is that the Dark Sky weather app on my phone is amazingly accurate when predicting the exact time of sunrise. It’s a bit less accurate with the actual weather, but still the best app for that purpose I’ve come across.) As soon as I finished up at that location, I headed north out of Natchez for the last time, determined to accomplish two things that day: 1) Photograph some of the beauty I observed along the Natchez Trace Parkway when I first left the major highway outside of Jackson the previous Friday, and 2) See how far I could make it back toward home in St Louis.

The Natchez Trace Parkway was constructed by the US National Park Service. It has limited entry/exit points, cypress swamps, and important archeological sites. It has more than 90 specified stop-off points along the way, with lots of woodlands and waterway scenery. It closely follows a forest walking trail blazed by ancient Indian tribes for a trade route between the Mississippi River and central Tennessee. The entire Trace stretches from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee – about 450 miles.

It’s difficult to describe how beautiful the Pearl River stretch of the Natchez Trace Parkway is, and my photos don’t do it justice. I was on the wrong side of the river for that time of day, with the sun facing right down into my camera lens. (You’ll see some sun flare in a few of the images I captured.) So you’ll just have to take my word for it; this area justifies its inclusion in books like “The Most Scenic Drives in America” and “1001 Drives of a Lifetime.” If you’re looking for solitude and beauty in a woodland river setting, this would be hard to beat. It reminded me of the times I have stood among redwoods and sequoias in the great northwest, but it was cheerier, and less solemn. The shoreline was rocky and sprinkled with chunks of colorful driftwood. The bright sun sparkled on the surface of the water, the air was crisp and fresh, and traffic on the road was rare. I don’t think I encountered more than one vehicle per 10 minutes of travel.

My little blue Ridgeline posing along the Pearl River

I pulled off the roadway several times – and immediately found myself very grateful for my 4-wheel drive. The ground was saturated with recent rain, resulting in a grassy bog that ran all the way down to the rocky shoreline. But what splendor! I’d make the trip again just for that drive. My only disappointment was finding that – like just about every waterway in the United States these days – the shores are littered with plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and other detritus. I’ve photoshopped most of these elements from my photos, but – yuk! I just hate to see how we’ve spoiled so much of our landscape. I captured my last image on this excursion at 10:39am, and then headed northwest – back toward St Louis.

My journey home was accompanied most of the time by music. I started out singing along with my favorite gospel tunes (it was Sunday, after all, and I dearly love the old gospel hymns) and then followed up with other playlists from my iPhone. It was long drive back, and I ended up having to rest my eyes for a few minutes around Sikeston, Missouri before making the final leg home. My eyes were burning, and I found myself starting to drift. So, I just found a parking lot and caught a short nap there. Seemed to work just fine, and I finally rolled into my driveway between 7:30 and 8pm.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM EXCURSION #1

I can sleep in my truck for a couple of consecutive nights, but really need to use a hotel room on the third night to stay alert and rested through the excursion.
I have a little more work to do on the configuration of my truck for sleeping. Nothing major, just a couple of adjustments. But they should make a big difference. Love the truck, though. It drives extremely well, provides the platform I need for my tripod in the bed, has 4WD, and a good stereo system.
I made a great decision on the sleeping bag. I purchased a Meridian sleeping bag rated for ten degrees F, and it is phenomenal. Would make that choice again!
I need to work on the exact balance between freewheeling my schedule and a structured agenda. I loved the freedom of very few scheduled events (in this case, it was actually only 1 – the ghost tour I found online.) But as I move into periods of the year that are tourist seasons and more popular destinations, I’m going to have to commit to critical elements like scheduled tours and hotels or camping spots in advance in order to make everything happen. Guided tours and visitors’ centers turned out to be invaluable ways to orient myself, prioritize the things I want to see/do, and get questions answered.
Take my time. I am still fighting the “need” to see more, do more, and keep moving. I don’t need to pack every attraction / event / location into every excursion. To a substantial degree, less is more. I want to make these excursions about the experience; including the people and the culture and the character of the places I visit. The gestalt.
It’s a bit disorienting to have no “home base.” When I am traveling and staying in my vehicle, there is nowhere to go back to at night to power down and stretch out. No bedroom, no living room, no kitchen. No bathroom. Just my truck. It takes some getting used to. Even in Iraq and Afghanistan, when I was out with the Army or the Marines there was a forward operating base (FOB) where I could throw my gear down, find an open cot – usually in a tent – feel like it was my home (albeit temporarily.) This voluntary homelessness is at the same time liberating and unsettling. I’m confident that I’ll get more comfortable with it as I do it more, and establish a kind of rhythm for myself. But it’s a great adventure, and I love it!
My camera will run for two-to-three days solid – taking still images – on the combination of two batteries that I’m using; then I’m going to have to have 110 AC access for about 8 hours to get everything recharged. My iPhone can be recharged from the truck as I drive – no problem.
My laptop can be recharged and used at the same time – at any coffee shop or McDonalds. (This trip was “Pre-COVID. ” Finding a McDonalds or other facility with 24-hour electrical outlet availability is now more of a challenge!) On this trip, it was the best way I found to keep up with emails, surf for information, and so on.
Official retirement is not as “freeing” as I expected on some level. Between my class schedule, family commitments, and so on there is still a constant balancing act involved. But – hey – it sure beats commuting to a regular commercial workplace every day – especially on frigid winter mornings!
I need to be more disciplined about collecting and cataloging information during my excursion. I think I need to set aside at least 30 minutes – probably more like a full hour – each day to capture and organize my notes in preparation for blogging about the travels. For the information to be useful to others, I need some consistency and structure. I also need to be able to depend on a more reliable tool than my memory about the people and places I encounter along the way.

Highlights