Bullen Creek

"Traveling up the Natchez Trace Parkway eighteen miles north of Natchez, Mississippi, we arrive at an exhibit called Bullen Creek. This is the first of many Nature trails along the Natchez Trace Parkway where visitors can take a 15 minute walk that carries them through a Mixed Hardwood-pine forest and a mixed hardwood forest. The Hardwoods and the pines are battling it out, competing for water and sunlight. The tops of the hardwood trees block the sunlight from reaching the forest's floor and seedlings there have to struggle to survive. Pine trees don't tolerate the shade as well as the hardwoods do, so in this battle the hardwoods are winning.

"Between Natchez and Jackson, Mississippi the parkway is at its lowest elevation, which varies between 200 and 300 feet above sea level. Since Natchez, we have been in what is called the Deep South and the climate here is subtropical. There are not only hardwood and pine forests here, but also marshes and cypress swamps. If you travel this portion of the Trace, you'll see Spanish moss hanging like long beards on some of the trees -- treebeards.

"Join us next time when we'll look at the skeletal ruins of the Windsor Plantation. I'm Frank Thomas, your guide along the Natchez Trace, a Road Through the Wilderness."

For more about Natchez Trace: A Road Through the Wilderness, visit eddieandfrank.com