Natchez Trace - Jim Colyer

---

On my 39th birthday, Karen, Michael and I drove down Natchez Trace to Tupelo, Mississippi. In the 1800s, men walked up this trail after sailing flatboats down the Mississippi River. Along the Trace, we saw Indian Mounds and the burial site of Meriwether Lewis, the great trailblazer. Once in Tupelo, we visited Elvis Presley's birthplace. Natchez Trace is a project of the National Park Service and is kept free of commercialism. It makes for a pleasant drive.

The trip reminded me of other excursions. The Land Between the Lakes is run by Tennessee Valley Authority. The two lakes are Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, formed by the damming of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Both rivers dump into the Ohio.

Cairo, Illinois is where the Ohio meets the Mississippi. Down around this area, we saw an archaeological site of the so-called Mississippi Man. This burial ground is 1,000 years old.

Karen and I went to Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park, Stones River Battlefield in Murfreesboro and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, even Fort Campbell on the state line. We went to Mammoth Cave in 1980 and to Jonesboro in 1981-82.

In 1982, we exited the World's Fair in Knoxville in favor of the zoo.

The late 1970s and early 1980s was a time of travel. I roamed the country at will, seeing places I only dreamed of until my 30s. There were long trips west and short ones in and around Tennessee. I started alone. Then it was me and Karen. After Michael was born, things changed. We had a baby to raise. Nor did it make sense to return to places we had seen at lower prices. To this day, Karen says we had good times.

---