Don’t hurry when traveling on the Natchez Trace Parkway. This is a lazy road.

It holds stories about famous heroes, leaders and outlaws. It invites you to stop and visit many interest sites along its 450-mile length from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi.

The modern trace — designated a National Scenic Byway and an All American Road — was begun in the late 1930s. After nearly 70 years, this limited access, two-lane highway virtually was finished in 2002 to form a continuous ribbon that blends into a bucolic natural setting.

The beginnings of the trace.

The parkway really enhances the original wilderness trail. It sweeps fluid-like through lowland fields, farmlands and wooded areas, generally following what was originally a series of buffalo trails.

Natchez, Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians and early settlers later used these trails to travel from the Mississippi over low hills into the Tennessee River valley. Riders on horseback relied on the trace to deliver mail to populated areas as the frontier expanded west.

Boatmen helped create the trace.

By 1785, American settlers in the Ohio River Valley, looking to market their crops and other products, were floating flatboats filled with goods to Natchez and New Orleans.

After reaching their destinations, they’d sell their goods along with the flatboats themselves for the lumber. The return trip home meant either riding a horse or walking. That’s how legions of boatmen heading north out of Natchez tramped the formerly crude trail into the clearly marked trace.

By 1810, the improved trace had become the most heavily traveled road in the Old Southwest. Local folks built many inns — called stands — along this route. By 1820, more then 20 such shelters accommodated travelers.

However, even with these improvements, the trace was not a bed of roses. Travelers faced many hazards including thieves, swamps, floods, disease-carrying insects and sometimes, unfriendly Indians.

Steamboats ended its use.

The growing popularity of steamboat travel changed all this. Travelers liked the steamboats’ speed and relative safety more than the slow pace and discomfort of going overland. Soon, activity along the trace quieted to the peacefulness of a forest lane, which is its character today.

Check out the sights.

Along its length, the parkway preserves the area’s heritage. The Park Service has set up nature trails, markers and exhibits that explain the region’s history. You can visit archaeological and geological sites, early homes and structures, plantations, inns, pioneer and slave cemeteries,

Native American settlements and Civil War battlefields.

Along many sections, the Natchez Trace Parkway parallels the Old Trace. You can walk along overgrown and abandoned portions of the Old Trace and get a feel for the trail’s original character and isolation.

National Park Service police patrol the modern trace to make sure drivers stick to the 50 MPH speed limit and that commercial vehicles don’t wander on.

My first ride along the trace.

I first drove my motorcycle — a 650-cc Triumph Trophy — along the parkway’s entire length in 1995. At that time, the highway wasn’t complete. Frequent detours took me off the trace, onto local roads for a few miles, then back onto the highway.

I was heading north from New Orleans on my first extended motorcycle trip. Just about everything about solo touring was new to me. I’d never been through the South. I’d never camped out with the motorcycle or maintained it on the road.

One evening, after traveling on the trace along its first 50 miles, I left the highway to buy groceries for dinner and gas-up the motorcycle. I returned to the trace and, after a few miles, found a secluded rest stop and picnic area.

I made dinner, worked on the motorcycle and wrote a few postcards. When it began to get dark, I pushed the bike out of site and pitched my tent. I’m sure the park police would have frowned on this move, but what the heck. It was September and the place was deserted. Actually, it was all quite peaceful.

The next morning, I packed up and got rolling at sunrise. I can still remember the clear, fresh air, the smell of dogwoods, the comfort of having a full tank of gas, and the enjoyment of winging along this beautiful, empty country road all by myself.

I spent most of the day looping in and out of points of interest along the trace.

The mysterious light in the woods.

Years later, my riding buddy, Don, and I were taking the trace north after visiting the Florida Keys. It was September and the campgrounds along the way were deserted. We stopped in one of the larger ones and started setting up camp for the night when two local motorcycle riders pulled in.

We talked for quite a while when one of the riders suggested to his friend that perhaps they should show us “the light in the woods.”

We didn’t care to leave the campground to “see the light,” but we got the story behind it — true or false.

It was a typical ghost story about a motorcycle rider and his girlfriend who, when riding through the woods at night, crashed and were killed. Now, as the story goes, if you park at night in a certain part of the woods near the trace, and wait in the dark, eventually you’ll see a single headlight winding through the trees. The light stops at a spot about a hundred feet away where the couple supposedly crashed and died.

According to our narrators, they’d seen the light quite a few times. When they turned on their own headlights or tried to get closer, the mysterious light disappeared. However, it would return within a short time.

We didn’t see any mysterious lights floating through the woods that night. I suppose it would have been creepy if we had.

A slow ride to Mississippi.

I took a ride on the trace two years ago on my way to meet some friends in Mississippi. The day before, I’d raced through twisty Deal’s Gap in North Carolina and was ready for some casual riding. I had plenty of time to reach my destination, so the “trace pace” suited me fine.

Along they way, I remembered that clear morning in 1995.

It was nice to be back.