Biscuits and the Natchez Trace

From Nasvhille to Orlando there are many wonderful experiences. To me, when you combine breakfast with the beauty of the fall and regional history you've found a winner.

A recent fall morning I decided to experience breakfast at the Loveless Cafe and a driving trip down the Natchez Trace Parkway.

This is an easy inexpensive way to spend a morning.

The Loveless just west of Nashville on Highway 100 has been around since the early 1950's, originally a hotel and chicken retstaurant its now a can't miss tourist stop for biscuits and many things fried.

The Loveless is famous for its fried chicken, barbecue and busciits. I've had them all and can recommend them. You'll pay somewhere between 13 and 18 dollars for a full breakfast. If that sounds pricey to you, it does to me as well.

You can limit your cost with water only but the coffee is good.

On this fall morning I chose the friend porkchops and eggs. Imagine a thin pork chop battered and fried like you do chicken or okra. The dish came with two pieces, as well as eggs, potatoes and buscuits. In hindsight I would go for grits instead of the potatoes. The potatoes are fine, but nothing special.

If that sounds like alot of food, it is. I boxed up one of the pork chops and half the eggs for a later meal. The business (which come with Loveless Jam) are special. We finished up our breakfast grabbed a to go cup of coffee and after a brief gift shop stop we headed to the Natchez Trace Parkway.

If you haven't heard of the parkway, you might not be southern. You can hop on the parkway less that a quarter mile from the loveless.

The Parkway follows the route of the old Natcez Trace. The Trace was an early road that native americans and later settlers would use for transportation and trade. Its believed that the route could date back 10,000 years.

Construction on the parkway itself started in 1933 as a WPA project and was finished in 2005. The parkway is 450 miles long. You can make detours and stops along the way to connect with the trace itself.

The trace was a heavily traveled route from Natchez to Nashville. Andrew Jackson traveled the route with his citizen soldiers to New Orleans during the war of 1812.

You can see a monument dedicated to Jackson and his troops a few miles from the loveless exit.

Today, we're mainly going down the Parkway to see the color of the fall leaves. It's early November and a gorgeous day. The Parkways is a US Park, it's patrolled by Park Rangers.

As recommended we jumped on the parkway at its termination point near the Loveless. No doubt we missed the best part of the fall leaves but what we saw was still special. There were still some colorful leaves on the tree but leaves were also painting the ground around the trees. My recommendation would have been a mid October trip to get the best view of fall leaves.

We travelled about 30 miles down the parkway to the Gordon House. Captain Gordon ran a ferry and built a brick home. He worked with the Chickasaw chief to operate the ferry.

Captain Gordon would fight with Jackson, but would die in 1818, his widow would stay at the home until her death many years later.

The home is a great stop, you can hike through the woods to the actual trace sight and the ferry site. While you can't tour the home you can walk around and look through a few cracks into the house.

There are bathrooms at the parking lot.

We headed back passing several hiking trails and few stops we'll make next time.

We left the parkway at the Liepers Fork exit, I recommend this stop if you have time. Lots of old Tennessee history and current day shops in Lieper's Fork including the original home of Puckett's restaurant, gift shops including one owned by the wife of a country music super star.

There is also a distillery in Lieper's fork, its worth a tour if you want to make a day of it.

Our breakfast, driving trip and brief hike took about 2/12 hours.

We were pushing the end of the colorful season but the government had just re-opened esnuring the parkway gates were open and patrolled.

Here's a few photos from our trip.

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