Murfreesboro Tennessee: 300 miles, .5 mile walked, 9 caches, 2 new States.

We started off from Tupelo along the Natchez Trace. We started at a visitor's center and had a 12 minute film to introduce the trail. The narrator suggested we take our taaaaaahm along the Trace. So we did. It's two lane, but very sparsely travelled, because there's nothing but trees along the way. A 444-mile long narrow park! We stopped at all the stops till it became apparent that we were going to be running late if we weren't careful. Then we became a little more choosy. We got some virtual caches, and a couple of real caches that were just off the trail.

The Natchez Trace cuts across the corner of Alabama, which is why I chose it, of course. We got the virtual, but because we'd like to leave a digitalfish in every state (which didn't work out in Arizona or Louisiana) we tried the only other Alabama cache I'd listed. The cache wasn't big enough, but it was my favorite of the trip so far.

Back during the Trail of Tears, one woman who had been forcibly re-located to the Oklahoma territory was homesick, and walked home to the Tennessee River through the wilderness. On her own. It took 5 years. Her great-great grandson (a "white man": how come one drop makes you "black" but 1/16 doesn't make you "Indian" and besides, I believe it does for the Indian tribes. ANYWAY) wanted to honor her and was told by the people of this disappearing tribe that a rock construction would be appropriate. So he's been making a rock wall for 32 years. He was out working on his wall (which is 8 feet thick and winds around and has islands, etc., to total 7 miles!!!) today and came over to talk to us. He's a fascinating man. When I took a picture, he said the language, which only has 6 speakers now, would call it a "Sash-oan" (I think) or "shadow catcher."

We were getting hungry, ate some raisins, and pulled off in a little hamlet where there was a welcome center, and a closed cafe. We had a nice long talk with the lady at the welcome center. How long is it we've been geocaching? Something like 6+ years, right? So did we look to see if there was a nearby cache when we were at the welcome center? There was, but we didn't. At least we got a cookie!

The deadline was that we were going to meet a journaller friend from 8-12 years ago or so. We pulled up into his parking lot about 10 minutes before he got off work. Such planning. Preen! We sat and talked (even politics, which of course we always do in e-mail, but out in the open with eavesdroppers was a bit different) for 90 minutes before Rich and I reluctantly let him go. That was fun.

We stopped for a few more caches in Nashville, had dinner, came here to Murfreesboro and cached some more.

Sadly, I discover the pool opens Memorial Day. Alas.