Walking in their footprints








This is a story of people on the move. The Chickasaw and the Choctaw Indians walked paths following game.  The French and Spanish peoples ventured out into the world and walked this trail bringing their pack mules and making the path a trail. These people mapped the land.  Travelers used the map and tramped the crude trail making it a wilderness road. Farmers moved goods along the road making it wider.   Soon people built inns along the road.  Thieves aded a danger along with swamps, disease carrying insects. People wanted a safer way to travel and soon they found it with the steamboat travels and the bustling trace became a peaceful forest lane. Today parallel to that lane is a National Scenic Byway.

We walked along this trace for several hours today.  We could feel the history in our feet.  We imagined the Indians hunting deer; the early explorers picking a route, the travelers coming to a new land, the farmers moving their goods to sell in the cities.  We thought of thieves around the bend and swatted insects.  But mostly we enjoyed a peaceful hike along a forest lane. We found a tree that looked like a zebra; we admired the colors of Fall, and we gazed at the beauty of the forest. For the second time in our lives we came across a flock of robins; yes robins. About 30-40 of them flying together among the trees working their way south. What an incredible site and sound it makes.

We made our own sound later watching the sunset among the trees: Thomas Michael Reiley, John Harley and the Bayview Bushriders, Sons of the Pioneers, Bob Dylan, John Bardy, ShAnnie, and RedHead Express were among them.  Our movie was Sorcerers Stone-Harry Potter.

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