The Natchez Trace Parkway - History Repeats Itself
We were on our final leg of our trip up the Natchez Trace Parkway. This part goes through the foothills of the southern Appalachian Mountains. You can stop in Tupelo, Mississippi and see Elvis' birthplace, (we didn't) and near the Northern Terminus, you can visit the grave of Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. We were looking forward to that.
As we drove this part of the Trace , we saw a sign that said "Tornado Damage April 2011". For the next eight miles, trees were uprooted, snapped in half, bent over and most had the bark stripped off. Over the next twenty miles, we saw many more damaged areas from other tornadoes that had torn their way up the parkway. There wasn't anywhere to pull over and get pictures, and I can't find any in the public domain that I can post here, but search the images on Google for " natchez trace tornado" and you'll see the damage for yourself. I suggest you do that because this April 2014, three years later, many of these same areas were about to be hit again, and here we were leisurely touring our way through, just days before all hell broke loose again.
We were on our final leg of our trip up the Natchez Trace Parkway. This part goes through the foothills of the southern Appalachian Mountains. You can stop in Tupelo, Mississippi and see Elvis' birthplace, (we didn't) and near the Northern Terminus, you can visit the grave of Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. We were looking forward to that.
As we drove this part of the Trace , we saw a sign that said "Tornado Damage April 2011". For the next eight miles, trees were uprooted, snapped in half, bent over and most had the bark stripped off. Over the next twenty miles, we saw many more damaged areas from other tornadoes that had torn their way up the parkway. There wasn't anywhere to pull over and get pictures, and I can't find any in the public domain that I can post here, but search the images on Google for " natchez trace tornado" and you'll see the damage for yourself. I suggest you do that because this April 2014, three years later, many of these same areas were about to be hit again, and here we were leisurely touring our way through, just days before all hell broke loose again.
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| Davis Lake Recreational Area |
We spent two nights at Davis Lake Recreation Area just south of Tupelo, MS, one night at Tishomingo State Park near the parkway milepost 304,
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| David Crockett State Park |
two nights at David Crockett State Park in Lawrenceburg, TN
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| David Crocket State Park |
and had planned to spend two nights at J. Percy Priest Lake Seven Points Campground near Lavernge TN, but...
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| Seven Points Campground at J. Percy Priest Lake |
I have to admit that in our life as full-time RV nomads, we pretty much ignore the media. If it ain't happenin' to us, it ain't happenin'. We have a weather radio that's set up to alert us for severe weather warnings, but not watches. If we had it set to alert us for every sever weather watch, it would never stop going off. We didn't know that we were just ahead of all these storms until we spoke to our friend Norb, who told us what was forecasted. We left Seven Points a day early and headed straight for Sevierville, TN, (no Meriweather Lewis Monument for us this time,) where we were scheduled to attend the RV-Dreams.com Spring Educational Rally. It was only after we arrived in Sevierville that we saw the carnage from the outbreak from Arkansas to East Tennessee.
Praise God, we missed the whole mess. Many others were not so fortunate.
Praise God, we missed the whole mess. Many others were not so fortunate.
Glad you are safe. Enjoy your trip. Miss you guys!
ReplyDeleteJim & Sandi