The Natchez...



The old trace

From the Louisiana coast we decided to head diagonally across Louisiana and Mississippi to visit Alexis's Grandmother in Decatur Alabama.  Lucky for us we stumbled across the Natchez Trace Parkway.  The parkway is part of the National Park system and follows and historic trade route.  At the start we toured the town of Natchez, visiting some historic cemeteries and old slave auction areas...  Not a lot of info on the old slave trade, this seemed to be a common theme in the area.  We did however find some pretty good BBQ.  We spent three days driving along the Trace (it's over 400 mile long) camping along the way and stopping at all sorts of interesting points.  Saw some Native American mounds, old trading posts, more cemeteries and plenty of swamp/forest. The parkway its self is really quite pretty, the park service has done a nice job of making it feel like your in the middle of nowhere.  Some of the informational signs are a little dated.  One sign for a spring metioned that Indians probably drank from it...yeah they probably did.

We had a really nice visit with Alexis's Grandmother in Decatur.  Alexis got to learn some about her family history and even got a bound version of the Snead family history.  Should make for interesting reading along our trip.  Headed to Atlanta to Visit with Patricia and Bob.