Karen’s Snapshots!

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I wish I had a pair of blue suede shoes to wear today since Tupelo, Mississippi is the birthplace of Elvis Presley. I started my day with a tour of Elvis Presley’s Birthplace; the book I bought, Guide to the Natchez Trace Parkway by F. Lynne Bachleda, identifies his birthplace as being at mile marker 260, but it really is in the town of Tupelo and off the Trace Parkway. The birthplace includes a museum, the original house he was born in, a memorial chapel, the “walk of life” and a “fountain of life”, both of which tell stories about his childhood. After touring his birthplace, I headed downtown to get a closer look at the building with the beautiful copper dome that kept attracting my attention–it was the Lee County Courthouse and is quite beautiful. I also strolled the downtown area and found the Tupelo Hardware Store where Elvis’ first guitar was bought in 1946. Tupelo is a charming little town and they definitely are proud to be the birthplace of Elvis. On the way back to the Trace Parkway, I stopped at the Tupelo National Battlefield (mile marker 259.7) and checked it out. Back on the Trace I stopped at:

• Mile 261.8 - Chickasaw Village Site (Trace Top 20) - Exhibit signs explaining typical Chickasaw Indian life and what the buildings would have looked like, as laid out along the pathways.
• Mile 266 - Tupelo Visitor Center (Trace Top 20) - The National Parks visitor center.
• Mile 269.4 - Confederate Gravesites (Trace Top 20) - Somber and peaceful, the graves of 13 unknown soldiers.
• Mile 275.2 - Dogwood Valley - A grove of dogwood trees, but they weren’t in bloom at this time.
• Mile 278.4 - Twentymile Bottom - On of the seemingly few elevated spots in Mississippi and it offered a view of the landscape below. FYI, Mississippi’s highest elevation is 806 feet above sea level on Woodall Mountain.
• Mile 283.3 - Donivan Slough - A pretty water spot.
• Mile 286.7 - Pharr Mounds (Trace Top 20) - An extremely large field with eight Indian burial mounds approximately 2000 years old.
• Mile 293.2 - Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and Jamie L Whitten Bridge - A bridge over a man-made canal that connects the Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers and a pretty wetland area next to it.
• Mile 308.4 - Cave Spring - A limestone cavern and what an excellent place to be when the afternoon rain started coming down, the trees are thick enough to keep the raindrops off me.
• Mile 308.8 - Bear Creek Mound - The oldest prehistoric site on the Trace, from approximately 7000-9000 BCE.
• Mile 308.9 - Crossing the Alabama State Line in the Rain
• Mile 327.3 - Colbert Ferry (Trace Top 20) - George Cobert operated a stand (inn) here and the only ferry across the Tennessee River, for which is charged admittedly high prices for.
• Mile 330.2 - Rock Spring (Trace Top 20) - A short trail around Colbert Creek with a geocache at the end. I didn’t see any hummingbirds, but there were beautiful butterflies all around.
• Mile 341.8 - Crossing the State Line into Tennessee
• Mile 350.5 - Sunken Trace - Sections of the old Trace, walked by the pioneers, can still be accessed and walked along.
• Mile 352.9 - McGlamery’s Stand - A stand owned by John McGlamery was operated here until the Civil War.
• Mile 363 - Sweetwater Branch - A nice picnic area by the creek.
• Mile 367.3 - Dogwood Mud Hole - A marker explaining how muddy the area became after rains.
• Mile 375.8 - Old Trace Drive (Trace Top 20) - A 2.5 mile one-way stretch of road that follows the old Trace path that you can drive north on.
• Mile 382.8 - Metal Ford - A pretty picnic site and creek where an old millrace was and were travelers crossed the Buffalo River.
• Mile 385.9 - Meriwether Lewis Site (Trace Top 20) - Grinder’s Stand, an old inn, is where explorer Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark Expedition fame, died in 1809. There was controversy over whether he committed suicide or was murdered. He was buried here and a monument was erected to him over his grave site.

I head off the Trace to Hohenwald, the nearest town, to spend the night.

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