Natchez Trace

Lane pulled the three-horse Sundowner horse trailer off I-40 just west of Nashville, Tennessee. Eddie followed her along the little winding highway through the beautiful green trees and mowed grass.

This would be the fifth camp Eddie and I had visited since we left home a week or more ago. This morning we left Cherokee Horse Camp at Cherokee, Alabama, drove through Mississippi and over to the Wrangler Horse Camp near Lexington, Tennessee.

The big welcome sign announced that we had arrived at the horse camp that had 200 miles of horse trails in the Natchez Trace State Forest.

The big trailers were pulled over to the side and everybody got out to walk the campground. It was better to survey the area and select a good site before the big horse trailers were moved again. A man in the park informed us that the larger sites were to the right. Lane found a couple big sites and Harold and Eddie went back to move the big rigs around the circle in order to make backing into the camp site easier.

The sites were down in the shade of the trees. Gravel was packed into the parking spots for the trailers.

There was a big fire ring at each site, a large wooden picnic table and a great tall pipe hanger for a camping lantern. The trailer was parked and we began unloading the horses.

Harold Wilson got out and opened the back doors of the trailer. He lead three horses out, one after the other. The little Peruvian Paso horses were tied to the high lines, fed and watered. Harold did the outside work even though he only had sight in one eye, the other being lost to a detached retina. The attorney by trade much preferred his choice of breeding, training and selling the Peruvian horses.

Molly Chamberlain, their guest from England, moved easily as she looked around anxiously for a place to be helpful. The small, energetic woman was in her 60's, but she loved the horses and rode every day dressed in the spandex pants, colorful shirt and big hat to shade her delicate complexion.

Getting to the job of setting up the inside of the camper trailer, Lane was preparing for the night’s sleeping arrangements. The tall, tanned woman moved about smoothly as she accomplished a great deal of the work of rearranging most of the packed items that occupied the trailer floor of the living quarters.

My husband got the big blue suitcase out of the front stall, opened it up and took out the long hay ropes and seat belts we use as tree saver to make the high lines for the mare and gelding. I carried the metal table over to the tree so we could stand on it to get the ropes up very high on the big trees.

The lines were strung and we tied the horses up and fed and watered.

Lane wanted to go back to Lexington to Wal-Mart and she had no trouble convincing me and Molly to go with her. We explored the park, stopped at a little grocery store, and checked out the restaurant and motel. We drove on to town and got our food supplies at Wal-Mart.

Molly was frantic trying to find the items she need to make a Christmas cake. She asked clerks for almond meal and other unusual items. Lane had told me how much she and Harold like to travel in the flannel lounge pants, so I bought me and Eddie a pair of those.

When we returned to camp, it was then time to build a fire in the metal ring. Harold came dragging tree limbs out of the forest, Eddie went in to get some more and I scouted out the empty camp sites for left over logs. Soon the fire was dancing and we settled down in our camp chairs to talk around the fire.

The next morning we were up to taking a trail ride. A nice man in camp told us there were two or three trails to go out on. We decided to take the ride going west. Eddie was in the lead over through the adjoining camp and entered the woods. Dusty scooted easily along through the woods

We got out in the woods for about an hour and lost the trail in the confusion of fallen trees. We sat looking in all directions when a couple came riding up from behind us. We had checked out two or three little paths trying to find the through trail. The couple seemed to know where they were going.

"Have you ridden in here before?" Harold asked.

The man riding the bronze gelding. said, "Yes, several times. We turn to the left here and the path goes around through there."

Some trees had fallen across the main path and not very many people had been on this trail lately and it was not cleaned out yet.

"Can we follow along with you," Harold asked.

"Sure come on. We’re going to ride across the road and on the other side," he said, "If I can remember which way to go."

Our little tribe dropped in behind the woman on the walking horse and we were again on the trail for a day’s ride.

We rode for another hour twisting and turning through the woods on the narrow trail. Everyone enjoyed the easy trip where we eventually crossed the mowed sides of the highway, looked both ways and put the horses across the big blacktop road. There was another trail leading back into the woods.

I was glad our guides knew where it was, because it was not an obvious place to go on to ride on that side of the highway.

We followed the trail for a while till we got on top of the little knoll. We sort of lost the trail again and our guide backtracked the trail and returned to us.

He came back and said, "This is the trail. We’ll just follow it right on out the ridge." We went about 300 yards and it turned off to the left down in a hollow. We crossed the hollow and went up the other side winding around probably a mile or so out through there. We ran into about six riders tied up at a little resting place.

We stayed around there and talked to them a little bit. I took my map and asked one of the men to show me just where we were. He looked at it and said, "That map doesn’t show it. We’re somewhere up here."

You mean we have ridden off of the map?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yes. It doesn’t show this area."

That is where Harold’s horse got loose from him. Sooner or later old Patches was caught. We snacked a little bit as we sat on the logs to let the horses rest.

The other riders told us good bye and rode straight on along the old haul road.

When we were ready to continue, our guide led out to left on the old haul road. We rode along a long time and it eventually lead off the hill to a bridge and a better gravel road.

When we got to the bottom of the hill, our guide said, "We always ride back up through these woods and eat dinner."

"That’s fine with us," Eddie said as we turned all the horses back to climb up on the hill.

We tied up to trees when we reached the almost flat area. This place overlooked the old haul road we had just come down. We ate our dinner and backtracked off of the hill to the road and rode down to a bridge.

The horses were thirsty, so we avoided the bridge and rode over an eight or ten foot bank in order that the horses could have access to the creek.

Harold crossed the creek and rode up the steep bank to rejoin the haul road. He stopped and took pictures of each of us as our horses gave great leaps to climb the steep trail out of the creek.

Following the haul road, we came to a place that was blocked by some trees. We had to ride to the right up a little steep place to get around that. Eventually we intersected another road and turned right.

Following this road, we came to the blacktop again. The horses all crossed the blacktop and moved up alongside the road about 300 yards. We turned to the right and got back on the trail again. That trail brought us back into camp.

We let the horses rest, fed and watered and built a big fire. Harold lets his horses cool down before he unsaddles them. I had not seen that done before, but I believe it is probably a good idea.

Molly offered to treat us all to dinner at the restaurant. I really wanted to go but I was fearful of leaving the horses in an almost empty camp without anybody near to watch them. Our friends understood, so Lane cooked some barbeque chicken. She also fixed omelettes. It was splendid to enjoy the evening after a good ride in this wonderful park.

Plans were made to ride again Sunday morning, but when we woke up, it was raining.

Lane said, "We’re going on back home since we can’t ride today."

"Yeah. We’re going to leave too. We’ll start back toward home and find us another place to stay tonight," Eddie said.

By this time I had a sore throat that wouldn’t quit. Lane gave me some honey to put in my tequila. It helped a great deal to lick the spoon that contained the "cough syrup."

We sure didn’t get enough riding of the Natchez Trace. The ride was about seven hours, but with 200 miles of trail, we only skimmed the surface.

I remembered to get Molly’s email address back in England. I appreciate the new friend and we exchange emails several times a week.

After exchanging big hugs and reluctant farewells, we waved goodbye to Harold, Lane and Molly as the white truck took them back to Alabama.

Ed and I decided to stay that night in Big Sandy Trail Ride campground, but when we called Art Howell, he said we were welcome to come for the night but they were leaving the next morning at 6 AM for Florida.

That was a little earlier than we wanted to get up, so we continued into Kentucky and found the Double J Campground.