The Way It's Supposed To Be

I admit. I'm tired of steakhouses with a buffet and folks bellied up to the trough for rolls and bad mac & cheese, and cookies. I want to walk in, order a steak and potato, saunter over to the salad bar, make a salad, and sit down and eat a good steak with some Texas toast. I found it in Meridian, MS at The Old Farm Beef House. 10 ounce ribeye for $15.99, medium rare. No frills, but a good steak cooked over charcoal. The way I remember steak houses "back in the day".

The Final Stretch

It's the final push to the end of the Natchez Trace. It's getting hilly. Seeing more deer and turkeys on the side of the road. The flat-landers have to stop at every waterfall since we don't see many of those.

And then it ends. Just like that. Mile Marker 442.

We are sad. We don't want it to end. What we thought would be "boring" has turned into "relaxing". Once we're off the Trace, mailboxes, powerlines, driveways, and 18 wheelers seem foreign to us. We want pine trees and Indian mounds.

We're almost at Nashville, but after the Trace, I can't stomach Nashville traffic, so we opt for the downtown sights and shops of Franklin, TN. It's way past lunch, so we dive into BB's BBQ for some 'Q and cornbread (must be a TN thing).

With a belly full of 'Q, we make tracks for Lynchburg. It's time to wind down by the time we get there, so we settle into the Lynchburg Country Inn.

Nice little inn 1/4 mile from the Jack Daniel's distillery which is where we're headed tomorrow.

(It's dark now...and then the sun comes up.)

Daylight breaks, we head for the Iron Kettle for breakfast as the tour of the distillery doesn't get going until 0900. No Egg-Mcmuffin here. Take a look at the picture. I think it will explain things better than I can.

We drag our full bellies off to the distillery to meet Mister Jack. Here's the man...

Here's the spring where ALL the water for makin' whiskey comes from...

Here's the original building where Ol' Jack did business next to the wood stove...



Here's the final product...


Tour was free and definitely worth stopping by for if you're in the general area ('cause it is a bit of a drive from anywhere).

Let's review:

The Natchez Trace. Drive it. The whole thing. Eat somewhere beside a chain restaurant. Stay in a Bed and Breakfast. Enjoy.

B-Word

Corinth and Shiloh

I barely slept. I had checked out the menu for breakfast at Abe's Grill in Corinth, MS the night before. The sun came up and the time had come. Blew off the free breakfast at the hotel and a new road trip day had started...

Slight rain had begun, but it was warm and cozy in Abe's. Hot coffee, homemade biscuits, sawmill gravy, and PORK BRAINS! Find that at Cracker Barrel!

Anyway, it's a tiny little place where you sit at the bar on a stool. All the cookin's going on right in front of you. Owners never let you run out of coffee.

I opted for the pork tenderloin, biscuit, egg, sawmill gravy, and coffee. Too early for the brains. REAL sawmill gravy, not something out of a package. We're talking $5.50. Fabulous. Wife went for the same with bologna instead of tenderloin. Bologna is big in these parts evidently.

We almost couldn't leave. This is so totally my kind of place. We chatted with the owners, drank coffee and then finally pryed ourselves back onto the road.

I drove for 3 hours with a big smile on my face just thinking of that fabulous tenderloin with sawmill gravy and homemade biscuit. 3 hours.

Into the rain and Tennessee we went with a stop at Shiloh National Park. We pretty much had the park to ourselves. Here the Yankees got a little obnoxious with the Rebs.

23,000+ were killed in the span of 2 days. Fairly sobering in the rain with the thunder rumbling, as the battle was fought in the rain.

I'm still thinking about Abe's.

On to Corinth, MS

I've now got it on the brain to be in Lynchburg as my last night, so I'm trying to do the math on how far to travel and I don't know how many historical markers are between me and Lynchburg. In the meantime, more beautiful Natchez Trace...

We're getting further north now and really beginning to see more critters. Count the heads on this one - a mamma turkey with some of this year's children.

Mile marker 269.4: a short walk down the trail takes you to the graves of 13 unknown Confederate soldiers.

Mile marker 286.7: the Pharr Mounds, eight burial mounds built 1,800 to 2,000 years AGO! Take that Europe. There's actually several burial mound stops along the way. Here's what they look like, and after the first 6, your wife won't need to see any more.

We blow through Tupelo since we've already hit Elvis' birthplace previously (but otherwise a mandatory stop).

Gotta eat, but we're in the land of no towns and no restaurants, so I head for Cherokee, AL on Hwy 72 and discover JJ's Restaurant. I didn't take any pictures of the grub. I figured they'd throw me out if I started snapping away. Meat and three kind of place.

Corinth is on the horizon and I'm aiming for the Corinth Interpretive Center (FREE!) which gives the story of the battle of Corinth and Shiloh (where I'm heading to tomorrow). Good little stop, good movie and museum. No B&B's available, so we're going to have to be regular people and stay in a hotel. I have already scoped out my breakfast tomorrow (IN LIEU of the FREE one I have at the hotel, so you know you've got to come back to see how this goes down.)

Headin' North on the Trace

Make tracks north - going through the State Capital, so we need to see something.

We picked the Old State Capital Museum. Got there with an hour and a half before closing, so we rolled through. Neat old building with lots of history. Admission - FREE!

Canton's not far off the Trace, so we took a detour to see the little town that Hollywood likes for it's classic town square. Films shot here include "My Dog Skip" (classic dog movie, but some kind of tear jerker, if you're a dog person), "A Time to Kill", and "O Brother, Where Art Thou".

Finally we hit the swamp trail along the Trace. This was one of the trails I had been looking forward to. Wife, not so much. Gators and snakes behind every tree you know. Worth a walk.

Time to put the steel steed to bed and Kosciusko looked like a good place. Kosciusko's claim to fame I suppose is Oprah (grew up here). Kosciusko was a bit of a surprise. Nice little square (like Canton) with shops, etc. We picked the Maple Terrace Inn B&B.

Like in Natchez, we had the whole place to ourselves. Great house built in 1912 (?). One of those you could picture yourself living in in small town America. Screened in porch with swing. What more do you need?

Breakfast was a little non-standard, but nice. Go a couple of blocks to the Rib Alley Restaurant, pick your food and enjoy.

Nice breakfast to keep my aortic plaque buildup going.

On the Natchez Trace

On the Trace (almost) - Night 1 supper was Fat Mamma's Tamales in Natchez. We're this close to Louisiana and they tend to do tamales in LA so we might as well have some. Half dozen 'bout $6.

Now we're hitting the road: Natchez Trace MILE ZERO! 442 to go! Animals and people WAY back in the day traveled the Trace. Read about it at http://www.nps.gov/natr/index.htm.

Here's a shot of the Old Trace. Wagons, etc wore down the ruts.

No trucks.

No mailboxes.

No fences.

Little traffic.

50 mph.

1 gas station (closed).

Historical/information markers/pull-offs/trails every other mile (seemed like).

Flocks of turkeys. Flocks. With an s.

You really wonder where you are. No cell phone coverage for me until North Mississippi. Perfect.

Well, we were a good 60 miles outside of Natchez and had stopped at roughly 325 historical/informational markers and the 'ol stomach started rumbling, so we needed chow. Hey, why not the Old Country Store in Lorman, MS? Looks like our kind of place...

Built in 1875. Buffet $9.95. Old hardware store I reckon. GOOD-COOKIN'. Fried chicken done right. Collard greens were unreal. Seriously, I couldn't stop talking about them. Some kind of mac/cheese/something that was great. Proper sweet tea.

The owner came out and sang "My Grandma was a Cornbread Cookin' Queen" right in the middle of eating. I was as happy as a boll weevil in cotton right about then.

Feast your eyes on this feed:

If you're within 50 miles of this place, you have got to go.

Next stop: Jackson.

Natchez Trace Road Trip Night 1

The Briars Bed & Breakfast, Natchez, MS. $99. For a little more than a Holiday Inn Express, we were sitting on the highest bluff between the mouth of the Mississippi and St. Louis. Watching the barges make the slow trip up and down the river. It was a weekday and we had the WHOLE HOUSE to ourselves. Oh yeah, Jefferson Davis' 2nd wife grew up here. Built in 1814. He married her in the parlor in 1845. Grab a book, sit in the parlor and read his letters. Sit on the porch, listen to the cicada. Walk to the overlook and watch the river go by.

Sit by the frog pond and listen to 'em croaking. Natchez under the Hill is a couple hundred yards away.

Breakfast (it is a bed and Breakfast) overlooked the river. Henry served grits, orange juice, coffee, muscadine jelly, biscuits, grilled apricots, fig muffins, and sausage/egg casserole. I was concerned about it's ownership by a casino, but I never would have known it.

Great overnight stay!

http://www.thebriarsinn.com/

Lead in to Natchez Trace Road Trip '09

Thus begins THE BLOG:

Road Trip '09: Drive the Natchez Trace from Natchez, MS till it ends just South of Nashville, TN. I've been on parts, but never drove the whole thing in one shot. Figured after the first 30 miles of pine trees, I'd be screaming to get off, but the exact opposite occurred. When we got off the Trace, we were ready to get back on. As the end came close, we didn't want it to end.

First night in Natchez was planned, but after that it we were winging it and it worked out well. We had all day to get nowhere in particular. Rules of engagement allowed no major chain restaurants. We went 3rd week in September and there was no one along the whole route. We had the waterfalls all to ourselves. Another 3 weeks, and I think the tree colors would be beginning to look good. Sometimes I'll take green trees with no people.

Enroute to the Trace Meals:

Ebro Cafe - Ebro, FL. Location - Dont' worry, if you're in Ebro, you'll see it. Figured we'd go ahead and get a good coating on the aorta so it wouldn't be in shock when we hit the Trace, so we dove right in. A classic meat and 3 for lunch at a price of $5.95. I went with fried mullet. Not everybody does good mullet, but they do. Pork chops, etc., all nicely fried. Good veggies stewed in appropriate amounts of meat. They have wildlife managment area maps on the wall and fish mounted on the wall, so it's my kind of place.

Next stop enroute to the Trace was the Southern Fried Rabbit in Columbia, MS. Wow, what a find. This set the bar high for the rest of the trip. (Columbia is also home to Pioneer Aerospace, maker of most of the parachutes for the military and NASA. If you ask nicely, they might give you a tour.)

3 picnic tables provides your choice of seating outside. And it's not just a cutsie name. THEY

HAVE RABBIT! Beautiful rabbit. I naturally went for the rabbit plate. Great rabbit. Wife went for the Chili-cheese burger (top 5 ever - her rating). Feast your eyes...

Other options include frog legs, rabbit with gravy po-boy, and bbq rabbit po-boy. See if that's on the menu at your chain restaurant.

I couldn't be much happier at this point. My dilemma was how could I top this on the Trace.

Read on (as soon as I write it)...