A Trace of Grits
We started out down the Natchez Trace today. The first job was figuring out where the name Trace comes from. As I should have guessed, it seems to be a combination of the definitions to copy and to follow in the path of. It seems this trail was originally one of the old animal trails that were likely created to get deer and other animals to and from the nearest salt lick. That trail got initially used by Native Americans to most efficiently get from place to place. The white settlers took up the trail during the War of 1812 when they would take crops and provisions down the river network to the Mississippi River to Natchez and eventually the delta in New Orleans. Getting there was easier by river, but getting back to Nashville was easiest by taking the old footpaths. As such, the settlers were copying the Native Americans, who, in turn, had copied the local fauna. Thus was created the Natchez Trace, which runs 444 miles from Nashville to Natchez on the Mississippi. When I mapped it on GPS, I was impressed at how straight a line it marked, at least between Nashville and Tupelo, Mississippi, which was our destination for the day.
There are many ways to get from Nashville to Tupelo that are shorter in terms of travel time, but there are no prettier routes. Back in the days of Daniel Boone and even later, the Trace was a useful byway for settlers traveling from the East down to the lower Mississippi, so much so that it gave rise to many towns in Tennessee and Mississippi and even a string of Inns and Taverns to create early traveler’s comfort stations like all great pathways of the world starting with the Silk Road. And as with all well-travelled routes, it also became the hunting grounds of countless brigands and bandits. The natural fertility of this area made the Trace become easily overgrown. The Trace was so deeply ingrained in Southern culture that in the early part of the Twentieth Century the various historical societies and women’s groups like the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) began to lobby the U.S. government to designate the Trace as a national treasure. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt formed the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930’s, ostensibly to jumpstart employment, the added benefit was that the CCC could be assigned to build infrastructure projects that might otherwise not be deemed as critical. Indeed, one of those projects was to build out the 444 mile Natchez Trace that was deemed to be 800 feet wide, allowing for a two-lane road and room for pleasant flora surrounding it. In 1938, FDR inaugurated the Natchez Trace Parkway as part of the National Park System.
The Trace is one of the most-visited National Parks to this day, hosting over 5 million visitors annually. We only drove the top half of the Trace today, but it was even more beautiful than I had imagined. For much of the trip we saw very few cars and drove at 40-50 mph, a leisurely pace by the standards of today’s Interstate Highway system. All along the way, in addition to the spring green young leaves on all the hickory and oak trees, the meadows along the Trace were littered with yellow, violet, blue and pink wildflowers. It was as lovely a drive as I can remember taking. While there are intermittent simple rest stops with bathrooms and picnic areas, mostly the Trace is undeveloped, which is a very pleasant change. There are no gas stations and only one visitor center with a gift shop.
Right at the start of the Trace there is a little cafe called the Loveless Cafe, which has become a necessary starting point if one is heading from Nashville south. The food at the Loveless is good hearty southern food with lots of biscuits and gravy and enough grits to choke My Cousin Vinnie. It was a good start to the ride. Be prepared to leave god cell reception behind since the managers of the Trace seem not to care that there are many dead zones along the way. It was a bit of a retro feeling to have to tune in the AM/FM radio to get some entertainment to go along with the bucolic views. Naturally we chose an Oldies station to stay in the spirit.
We had three stops to make in Tupelo before we could check into the Hotel Tupelo on Main Street (where else?) first we went to Elvis’ birthplace. That consisted of the house that Elvis’ father, Vernon, built in the midst of the Great Depression for $180 in materials, an Elvis Museum and the All Saints Church where Elvis made his public performance debut at the age of eight. The house survived a 1936 tornado that devastated the rest of Tupelo, but it was lost to a financial setback when Vernon was sent to prison in 1938 for bank fraud. Elvis went to school in Tupelo until he was 13, when his parents moved to Memphis to take advantage of more war-time opportunities available in the big city. By then he had a guitar and a penchant for music. His style had already become a mix of genres with a decidedly “trashy” element to it that took it into the new rockabilly arena. In many ways, it was his “Wrong side of the tracks” upbringing and somewhat outcast demeanor combined with the stronger than normal motherly influence from his mother, Gladys, gave him that soft-cheeked bad-boy image that made him so interesting to young audiences, first in the grit-eating south, but then quickly all across the nation and world. We got a full dose of Elvis’ roots in southern poverty and gospel bible-thumping, making that first stop very worthwhile.
Next we went to Tupelo Buffalo Safari, something that daughter Carolyn was excited to do based on her memories of the Great Adventure car safari of her youth. We got there just before 4pm, but Kim managed to convince the proprietor to let us take a quick run through with three plastic buckets of animal kibble for the hungry beasts. The first to welcome us were the ostriches, who with their long and flexible necks made the car window feeding an exciting moment for the granddaughters and Carolyn. The opening salvo cost us one entire bucket of treats, which was dropped in a feeding panic, We were more careful with the zebras and buffalo (it seems buffako used to roam up and down the Trace in the old days). But when we got to the llamas, who seemed more genteel, we had one chase us for more food, only to trip himself at the grated gate. It was a quick, but exciting visit to the animal park.
We had one more stop at an antique market of note before we could go to the hotel. It had been along day that started with grits and ended with southern Mexican food (yes, again with grits). I have no idea why southerners like grits so much. They seem pretty tasteless to me. I am as impressed by the Natchez Trace as I am unimpressed by grits.