Jackson to Jeff Busby - Natchez Trace Day 2

We spent last night at Timberlake Campground on the shores of Ross Barnett Lake just north of Jackson, MS and just a few miles off the Natchez Trace Parkway. This morning we awoke to another gorgeous day and we were back on the Trace heading north around 9:30 AM.


The first 30 or so miles of today's trip we have done in the past. Back in my past working life I worked for Entergy Nuclear Inc. which happens to be headquartered in Jackson, MS. My job required me to visit the corporate office several times in 2006/2007 and I had an opportunity to drive the portion of the Trace along Ross Barnett Lake back then. Peggy and I visited Jackson in 2008 and we both drove the lake portion then. Shortly after getting back on the Trace we came to a nice lake overlook and took some time to walk down to the edge of the lake and take a few pictures

The lake is really high right now following a pretty wet couple of weeks in this area. But I understand the Croppies are spawning so we saw a lot of folks spending a few Sunday hours fishing on the lake. It sure was a great day for that!


We continued up the Trace stopping at a few of the historical pull outs along the way. 

After traveling about 100 miles we came upon the Jeff Busby Campground. The Natchez trace has 3 campgrounds along its route. We drove through the Rocky Springs Campground yesterday at milepost 54.8. The Jeff Busby Campground is at milepost 193.1. Each of the campgrounds are first come - first serve, contain no hookups, and are free of charge.


Since Jeff Busby is located right about where we were thinking of stopping, since I was looking for a short travel day, and since they had a spot available - we decided to call it a day.

We had been previously warned that the 3 campgrounds along the Trace may be full of Canadian snowbirds heading home this time of year. Well ... those stories are pretty accurate. I think every other rig in the campground is from Quebec or Ontario. We pulled in pretty early (around noon) so there were a few spots available but the place was pretty full by early afternoon.


And then there was "the walk" I let Peggy take me on. It seems Jeff Busby is located on a mountain that is one of Mississippi's highest points at a whopping 603 feet! And Peggy wanted to walk up those last few hundred feet in elevation. A 1/2 mile walk - straight up! Well ... maybe it was only a 5% grade ... but still!!! At least the views from the top made it worthwhile.

We don't "dry camp" very often so we get to exercise those skills tonight. We have operated off our batteries and power inverter for electric power all day and they seem to be holding up pretty good. We did run the generator for an hour or so this evening when preparing dinner (needed the convection oven) and we let it run for a while longer to re-charge the batteries a bit. We are in some pretty thick woods so satellite TV was a no-go ... but we get several stations on our "over the air" antenna providing a bit of entertainment. That ... and a decent internet/cellular connection with our amplifier and external antenna ... we are all set here in the woods of Mississippi!


Tomorrow we plan to set sail north once again. Our destination this time will be Tishomingo State Park - right on the Mississippi/Alabama state line and right about milepost 305.


Another beautiful day is in the forecast. This is getting REAL hard to take!