After a pretty sunrise and hearty breakfast we headed back towards Knoxville and then west on I40. We ate our lunch at the Tennessee Welcome Center on I40 and decided we were tired of freeways and trucks.
At Nashville we exited onto the Natchez Trace. Now a national parkway, it follows the trail used by riverboat men to walk back north after drifting south on the Cumberland, Tennessee and Mississippi rivers. With no trucks or towns the narrow two lane road is popular with bicyclists. The Tennessee Welcome Center has a good brochure about the Trace and interesting local side trips.
The first section of the Trace is hilly and wooded. We stopped and hiked to a viewpoint wearing inappropriate footwear (Crocs) and drove a section of the old trace.
The “primitive” Meriwether Lewis campground has flush toilets, widely spaced level campsites and it’s free. You know you are in the South when you walk through the campground and people wave and offer you firewood. Since this was our first nice day we accepted the wood and ate our dinner by the campfire.
