Natchez Trace State Park only 94 more to go

Natchez Trace is a HUGE state park. It is about 1 hour 45 minutes from the house and I had completely forgotten how beautiful it is there. Here is a link to the website http://tnstateparks.com/parks/about/natchez-trace My husband and I had a wonderful time at this park. We actually had a kid free weekend. When you get to the park make sure that you check in at Pin Oak Lodge. DO NOT GO ALL THE WAY TO THE CAMP HEADQUARTERS LIKE WE DID. We decided to stay in a cabin because it was going to be extremely cold. We stayed in cabin number 13. The dog went crazy while we were there running and pouncing and jumping. He didn't really want to come into the cabin at all. The cabin was cute with a gas fireplace, kitchen, living room, bedroom, bath and a deck with a grill and picnic table. It was warm and that was all I cared about. We decided to try to make this weekend as cheap as possible because renting a cabin is not really in our budget so we didn't do things that we normally do like buy wood from the park and buy anything from the park store (t-shirt, sweatshirt, etc.) We scavenged wood. Since the cabin was on such a large wooded area it wasn't difficult to find wood however most of it was rotten. If you have ever smelled burning rotten wood then you know how bad it stinks. It will probably take a few washes to get the smell out of our clothes. On the first night we sat around our rotten smelling camp fire and enjoyed our evening talking about what we were going to do the next day at the park. The dog’s eyes glowed green in the night darkness and my husband’s shoes caught on fire. It was so quite in the woods with our little cabin behind us. We could hear coyotes barking and howling but our faithful dog didn't even stir, he was in heaven and so were we. The next day we loaded up the backpack with lunch, leashed the dog and started walking across wooden bridges that went completely across the river, it was perfectly beautiful. We are still trying to train the dog on the leash which is a job all in itself. He pulls you because God knows he has to be first in line. The park didn't have a ton of people there because of the time of year and it was cold and not a lot of folks were out walking around. We walked about 1 1/2 miles and decided that the dog was getting to be a little too much. So, we took him back to the cabin and got in the car and drove around. We saw signs for "the pecan tree" and thought why the hell not. Let's drive the 8 miles to the pecan tree and see what all that is about. While we were driving I thought that I would Google the infamous pecan tree and see what it had to say. I was 300 years old with a circumference of 19 feet and it would shade 1 acre of land. HOLY SHIT THAT IS A BIG TREE and we were siked about it. So we drove and followed all the signs and we drove some more and some more and we didn't find it. Then I looked back on google to find out where it was...who knows there could have been an address. I read and then I read "it" the tree died and they removed the stump about 3 years ago. REALLY? Why all the signs Natchez Trace? My feelings were hurt I wanted nothing more than to see that big ass tree. While we were out, not seeing the pecan tree, we did a little more hiking. There is a mile hike called Fairview Gullies that was about a mile and we walked that and we hiked to an old kiln. While we were hiking to the kiln the hubs saw a red fox which was pretty awesome. We ate lunch at the kiln and we cleaned up the area from trash...there ain’t no lower class than Tennessee trash. I'm not sure if anyone else remembers that commercial but I think that it has been permanently beat into my brain. We hiked a couple of short trails all in all hiking about 4 miles. In the spring the hubs and I plan on doing a backpacking trip and hiking quite a few miles. One of the hiking trails at the park was called Red Leaves trail which covered 40 miles. What a wonderful adventure. I would love to hike all 40. Something about hiking with everything you need on your back is very appealing to me. I love the idea of exploring places that very few people have ever been, people like me, people who love nature. The next day or the last day, it rained. It rained all night and all day because our chairs were soaked with cold rain. There is nothing more fun than gathering up cold wet camping crap in the rain (note the sarcasm). We drove the 1 hour and 45 minutes back home and our little adventure came to a close. We look forward to having another camping trip just by ourselves again.