Day 9 - Hohenwald, TN to Fairview, TN - Two Far 2020 - NTF (Not Two Far)

June 8, 2020

Day 9 - Hohenwald, TN to Fairview, TN

Got a flat at mile 80, missed a turn and got lost at mile 82, started raining at mile 84. Its late & I'm tired, but it was a good day.

Working to catch up on journal - check back later.

OK - it's later

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So you know how my day ended but it started out a lot better.

We knew we had another longish day ahead of us, so we were rolling around 9AM. I also knew from riding the Trace before, that this section would have a lot of climbs, but that it was also the prettiest part of the Trace. My memory served me well, as I was right on both counts.

The Napier Iron Mine Pit. The photo doesn't really capture how deep the pit is

The creek just upstream from the falls at Fall Hollow

John found a friend at the Sheboss Place. While it had a collar on, there was no one else around and we wondered if it had been abandoned.

The tobacco barn at the Tobacco Farm pull-off

Looking the other direction at Baker Bluff

A collapsed barn a few mile north of the Gordon house

With John nowhere in sight, it was pretty easy to ride single file.

Just a pretty view of the Parkway. Except around Jackson and Tupelo, this gives a notion of how much traffic there was on the Parkway.

Roadside graveyard. It was unmarked, so we have no idea who is buried there.

Just around the bend was a long downhill. I went down at least 30 MPH faster than I went up the other side :-). Having the road all to yourself made for a really fun ride

I have previously posted photos of mileposts 44, 144, 244 and 344. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of Milepost 444 at the end of the Trace BECAUSE IT DOESN'T EXIST. Even though all the literature says the Parkway is 444 miles long, the last Milepost is 442, and the Parkway empties onto Highway 100 just a short distance from there. What a bummer! John had spent the afternoon planning his pose, but it was all for naught.

Immediately after exiting the Parkway, we stopped at the Loveless Cafe for a snack / late lunch. (I had lunch, Jeanna & John snacked, even though they didn't know that they were snacking at the time they ordered their biscuit sandwiches. See photo caption below)

The famous Loveless Cafe. Famous for their biscuits, but be aware the biscuits are Slider Sized. Jeanna's BBQ Biscuit was more of a BBQ morsel.

The Loveless Cafe. It had just re-opened. Everything was served in Styrofoam ToGo boxes. Will we ever get back to normal??

Our waiter Owen. He had been laid off, but the Cafe brought him and a few others back to clean and paint while the restaurant was closed. In normal times this joint is packed, but while we were there, there was a very high staff to customer ratio (we were the only customers).

Once we left the Cafe, things started to go downhill, and not in the sense of elevation. After riding the parkway for a week, one tends to forget how busy roads can be, and how much trash and debris is on the shoulder. Not to mention having to deal with rumble strips. We had about 13 miles to ride on busy state highways to get to our hotel.

This post started about 6 miles into to this 13 mile section and that is how I ended my adventure on the Natchez Trace Parkway.

And now today's (and the final) Historical Markers

But first... A note about the markers. I managed to get most, but not all of the historical markers and signboards. In a few cases, the exhibits were closed and the roads leading to them were barricaded, so I could not get photos. In other cases, the signboards had deteriorated to the point they were illegible (especially in AL & TN). Finally, I just missed a couple that were down side-roads where I could not see that there was a marker and thus did not go down that road.

While all the photos are mine, I did use two excellent websites to get the milepost numbers and to find out more info about the exhibits.

If you have the interest, check out:

https://www.natcheztracetravel.com/ and

https://www.mississippimarkers.com/natchez-trace.html