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Winter trip 2026 - Day 14: Natchez Trace

It unexpectedly rained early this morning. The campground being right on the Trace makes it easy to get going, just head north.
There are pull offs with historical markers every 5 miles or so. When we drove this road last time we stopped at most of them. Today I just pulled it up on Maps as we drove by. We had a lot of miles to cover.
We did stop at the Cypress Swamp for a quick walk and education. 
Around lunch time we went into Tupelo to pick up some sandwiches (couldn't pass up going into the thrift store next door), fueled, and then back on the Trace. We found a nice place to pull over and ate. Just a few miles later stopped at the visitors center for some learning. 

We ended up covering over 400 miles before we stopped for the night, this time at the free campground at the north end. About 30 sites in this one, less than half were taken. 
We got set up, and I did what I do best which is collect firewood. 
A guy from the site next to ours came over and gave us a pallet to burn, they had a huge stack. I tried to make small talk but I think he was high. Eventually he asked if either of us had a cigarette. Looked like he was living there with at least 2 other people and a few dogs. Everyone else in the campground was like us, passer-throughers. 

We played puzzle chess with the puzzle I got in the thrift store earlier. It was the worst puzzle, like it was made out of cardstock. As soon as we finished we tossed it in the fire. 

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