Saturday, April 9, 2011
Askew's Landing, Edwards, MS: 3/20-21
This is probably the first time that we have paid for a camping spot while traveling on the Natchez Trace Parkway. The NTP approximates the route of the historic Natchez Trace, a 440-mile path from Natchez to Nashville that traders in the 18th & early 19th centuries would take after rafting their goods to market the other direction. Parts of the actual Trace are still visible, sometimes worn down 5 or 6 feet into the soft fertile soil. The Parkway is a two-lane road with a maximum 50-mph speed limit and no stop lights or stop signs the entire way, making it perfect for pulling our trailer. It is overseen by the NPS and made famous by some of Nevada Barr's mysteries, and, of course, our blog.
We decided to skip the free campgrounds for a number of reasons: in the spring it is quite difficult to find a space since they are usually quite crowded with Canadians waiting for warmer weather; we have grown less enamored with dry camping over the years; and probably most important, we were afraid that our batteries would not have enough charge left to retract our balky slide-out after 2 days of dry camping.
Getting to Askew's Landing off of the Trace turned out to be more of an adventure than we thought. We had to drive about 12 miles on a rural Mississippi "one-and-a-half lane" road, then have the cognizance to avoid a brand-new bridge in town that went straight up, then straight down, and would have almost certainly caused damage to our trailer, and then bounce down a 2-mile slowly deteriorating dirt road. The cg itself, however, was worth it -- large, grassy sites by a lake, with free WiFi. We had a very relaxing, unproductive stay here, which is exactly what we were looking for.
We decided to skip the free campgrounds for a number of reasons: in the spring it is quite difficult to find a space since they are usually quite crowded with Canadians waiting for warmer weather; we have grown less enamored with dry camping over the years; and probably most important, we were afraid that our batteries would not have enough charge left to retract our balky slide-out after 2 days of dry camping.
Getting to Askew's Landing off of the Trace turned out to be more of an adventure than we thought. We had to drive about 12 miles on a rural Mississippi "one-and-a-half lane" road, then have the cognizance to avoid a brand-new bridge in town that went straight up, then straight down, and would have almost certainly caused damage to our trailer, and then bounce down a 2-mile slowly deteriorating dirt road. The cg itself, however, was worth it -- large, grassy sites by a lake, with free WiFi. We had a very relaxing, unproductive stay here, which is exactly what we were looking for.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 11:52 AM 
