top of page
  • RSS Social Icon
  • Pinterest Social Icon
  • Black Facebook Icon
  • Black Instagram Icon
Search

Collecting National Parks - Natchez Trace Parkway Day Four

  • Jun 14, 2018
  • 2 min read

Missed the first installment of this series?



For the first time on our trip, we didn't have to start the morning by packing up our campsite. We decided to stay two nights at Tishomingo because of all the things there were to do in the are. Starting with the State Park itself!

Destination: Tishomingo State Park (mi 305)
Planned stops: Shiloh National Military Park
Soundtrack: 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson (audiobook)

Tishomingo State Park


Tishomingo State Part at Natchez Trace Parkway

We live below sea level. Suffice it to say that we get really excited when we hear words like "outcroppings", "drop-offs", "strenuous hike". We could've easily spent the day hiking, but we limited it to a few short-ish trails. They were so much fun that even the three-year-old managed over two miles of up and down terrain on his own two legs. We did the Outcroppings Trail and the Saddleback Ridge Trail.


Shiloh National Military Park


It was about 45 minutes off the Trace, but since it was an opportunity to collect another stamp in our National Park Passport Album, we set aside the afternoon to do it.


We should have set aside an entire day. The visitor center itself it wonderful - artifacts and an amazing 45-minute video (the boys had I had watched it on YouTube before the trip, but we were happy to watch it again, it was that good). But it's the driving tour that's really where it's at. We should have set aside about four hours if we wanted to see everything (and that's if we continued along at a fairly steady pace!) We had only about hour until the park closed.


Shiloh Military Park Battlefield at Natchez Trace Parkway Family Vacation

At the visitor's center, we downloaded an app that provided Park Ranger videos at points along the way and we prioritized the things each of us most wanted to see: Shiloh church, the Hornet's Nest, the spot were Albert Sidney Johnston died. There are dozens and dozens of monuments - where high-high ranking officers fell, where battalions were encamped, monuments for each state's soldiers. We took along the Junior Ranger booklets which had the kids keep an eye out for certain monuments that had key information that they needed to fill in their booklets in order to earn their badges. I can't recommend this stop highly enough. And watching the video (maybe several times) was really the key to having the driving tour be more than just driving through fields and woods.


Stay tuned for Day 5 of our Natchez Trace Parkway adventure! Did you ever chance a vacation at a spot you weren't exactly sure you'd like? How did it turn out? Sharing is caring! Leave a comment and tell me about it. :)



Check out some of my other travel posts:

Collecting National Parks - Natchez Trace Parkway Day Three

  • Jun 14, 2018
  • 3 min read

Missed the first installment of this series?


Natchez Trace Parkway Family Vacation day 3

Started our day at Jeff Busby site and drove quickly to the top of the "mountain" to see the view from one of the highest points in Mississippi. Sorry...but it's underwhelming.


Destination: Tishomingo State Park (mi 305)
Planned stops: Tupelo National Battlefield, Parkway Visitor Center, Brices Crossroads National Battlefield
Soundtrack: 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson (audiobook)

Tupelo National Battlefield (off the Trace)

I am married to a Civil War fanatic. He is always in the middle of at least one book about the Civil War, he has read the biographies / autobiographies of every major (and lots of not-so-major) generals on both sides of the conflict, and he makes a point to stop and tour even the most obscure battle sites whenever possible. As a concession to him, I allowed for three battlefield stops this trip. Tupelo was the first and we were disappointed to find that it was nothing more than a small grassy spot in the middle of the town on Tupelo. There's a monument. That's it. Not the treasure-trove of play-by-play signs that he hoped to find. Not worth the time to stop, even for a die-hard like The Engineer.


Parkway Visitor Center (mi 266)

Because the boys are collecting their Junior Ranger Badges, we were bound to stop at the visitor center. They enjoyed filling out the little booklet that enables them to earn their badge while we ate a picnic lunch. After they were sworn in as Junior Rangers, we headed off the Parkway for another nearby Battlefield.


Brices Crossroads National Battlefield (off the Trace)


We spent some time in an earlier homeschool lesson preparing for the visit to this site. (check out this video for a quick run-down on the battle). From everything I read about Brices Crossroads, I planned for a thirty-minute stop. Read the few signs, ooh and ahh at the cannons, get back into the car and go.


Nope.


You can't do that to an enthusiast. Nearly two hours later, after reading every sign, walking the battlefield and watching The Engineer point this way and that way ("General Forrest is coming with his Cavalry from that direction and - look over here - the Federals are exhausted after that double quick march..."), stopping in at the cemetery to read the names on the headstones, we finally loaded up and left. It was about an hour-and-a-half too long for the mommy and two littlest. But for the grinning Engineer, I guess it was worth it.


Tishomingo State Park (mi 305)


Tishmoningo State Park off the Natchez Trace Parkway

We set up camp for two days here since there was so much we planned to see splintering off from this section of the Trace. It is a beautiful spot! We easily could have vacationed here for an entire week, considering all there is to see in the area and the amazing hiking trails in the park itself. And there was a shower in the bathhouse. With the nights so cold, getting in a warm shower was heaven itself.



Next up is Day 4 of our Natchez Trace Parkway adventure! Did you ever chance a vacation at a spot you weren't exactly sure you'd like? How did it turn out? Sharing is caring! Leave a comment and tell me about it. :)



Check out some of my other travel posts:

Collecting National Parks - Natchez Trace Parkway Day Two

  • Jun 14, 2018
  • 3 min read

Missed the first installment of this series?


Natchez Trace Parkway Family Vacation Day 2

We woke up bright and early for our first full day on Parkway. It was just a short jaunt from Natchez State Park to the city of Natchez and the southern terminus. Judging by the NPS map, it looked like there was a lot that we were going to need to leave time for at the middle and end of the trail, so we decided that we would really log some miles today (sorry, but not really missing out on much by speeding through the spine of Mississippi).


Destination: Jeff Busby State Park (mi 193)
Planned Stops: Emerald Mound, Mount Locust Inn, Sunken Trace, Rocky Springs Town Trail, French Camp
Soundtrack: 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson (audiobook)


Emerald Mound


The boys were excited to revisit the first stop on the Parkway, one we'd explored during our first trip to Natchez: Emerald Mound. It was just as cool the second time around.


Mount Locust


Mount Locust was the next stop, but a few miles up the road. A historic inn for Trace Travelers, there is an old house that you can peek into and see what kinds of things it may have been filled with at the time, there's a short path back to a cemetery and a section path through the woods that lets you approach the inn as travelers would have.


Sunken Trace


Can't pass by the most iconic section of Old Trace - the sunken part - without stopping for a picture. Or, in the case of the boys, without stopping to see if they could scale the sunken walls.


Rocky Springs


Very cool site of a now abandoned town. There's not much left to see except for a lot of kudzu, the occasional well and - eerily - an old safe. But it's a very cool walk through the woods and just knowing that it was once a town and is not...nothing...adds an element of spook that thoroughly enchanted the kids. After walking the town trail, we found a good spot to spread out our picnic blanket, enjoyed lunch, then tucked the kids into the car for a nice long drive.


French Camp


We skipped everything between Rocky Springs and French Camp - about 140 miles worth of stuff. The Engineer is an obsessive sign reader and it pained him to pass each of the many pull-offs where we could have read something about the native tribes that used to live here, or the flora and fauna, or - worst of all - Civil War troop movements that occurred at that section of the trail. Glad we skipped all of that to leave time for French Camp, though. It was a doozy of a 1812 traveler's stand, with multiple historic buildings and outbuildings to explore. We stayed as long as possible before heading just a few miles up the road to snag a campsite.


Jeff Busby


The Natchez Trace Parkway features three free campgrounds, but the spots are on a first come / first serve basis. They do not have hookups or showers, but they are clean and nicely laid out and come on, you can't beat that price. We learned over the course of this trip that early April is the seasonal return migration of Quebecois to Canada after a winter in the southwest. We squeezed into the flock of RVs and set up our tent and enjoyed the sound of French conversation and the kids petted every passing dog.


Next up is Day 3 of our Natchez Trace Parkway adventure! Did you ever chance a vacation at a spot you weren't exactly sure you'd like? How did it turn out? Sharing is caring! Leave a comment and tell me about it. :)



Check out some of my other travel posts:

JOIN MY MAILING LIST

© 2023 by Lovely Little Things. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page