Natchez Trace Part 3, Mississippi

November 10, 2024

After a pleasant interlude at Davis Lake, it was back to the Natchez Trace Parkway for our continuing southward journey through Mississippi. This will be the final installment of posts chronicling our exceedingly gripping expedition along this scenic byway.

Our next stop at Jeff Busby Park was only about an hour's drive from Davis Lake. Like our recent stay at Meriwether Lewis Park, it was a free first-come, first-serve campground. Since we arrived early in the day, we were able to snag a large pull-through site that was pretty isolated from the other campsites.

Not as much fall color here, but it was a pretty park just the same

It was kind of hard to see the campsite driveways through all the leaves on the ground, and the campsites themselves weren't labeled

We were only at this location for three days, so we didn't do much except some provisioning at the nearest grocery store (about 15 miles away) and walking a trail off of the campground loop to an overlook.

This is the point where Rick figured out that the GPS battery was dead. So, this is taken with a phone and imported.

The easy, meandering trail took us through some pretty forest

Most of our stay was cloudy, but the sun did come out periodically, and that's when Julie took all the pictures 😉

On Thursday morning we were back on the Natchez Trace again, headed toward Rocky Springs Park, another free first-come-first-serve campground. We got an early start to our three-hour journey in the hopes of finding a spot with a better exposure for solar, as we had drawn down our batteries considerably in the shady spot at Jeff Busby. (It turns out that cloudy days under shady trees in November just don't provide enough solar to keep up with our electrical usage-- go figure 🙂. )

It didn't help that there was a lot of tree coverage along our route, and it was mostly cloudy to boot, so we didn't charge as much while traveling as we had hoped.

For a few miles, the view opened up to the Ross Barnett Reservoir

Rocky Springs was another pleasant campground, and we found a large pull-through all by itself that even had a bit of sun exposure. Even though our 4-day stay was mostly cloudy and sometimes rainy, we got just enough rays to keep our batteries going.

Rocky Springs Park Aside from a few leaves on the ground, it looked like fall hadn't made it here yet

Our site did have just enough sun exposure to ensure that we didn't fully drain our batteries

We had absolutely no cell service at this campground, which was actually kind of nice for a change. In between reading books (Julie highly recommends An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris) and other low-key things, we did the daily campground loop constitutional and explored a trail that led to some vestiges of the former town of Rocky Springs.

Since our GPS battery died on us, Rick now has to carry around a portable battery bank until we can get a replacement

Back on the original Natchez Trace

This part of the Trace had been especially heavily trafficked and was quite sunken

We walked through what was left of the original town of Rocky Springs

The original Methodist church, built in the early 1800s, still has services once a month

The old cemetery behind the church. There really were bees in the old tree on the left!

Several of these old trees looked quite spooky!

Kind of weird to see the remains of an old safe hanging out in the forest

And that was it for Rocky Springs

All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed our travel along the Natchez Trace. While it certainly wasn't an adrenaline-inducing thrill a minute, the weather was warm, and all the parks we visited were scenic and nicely maintained.

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