Friday, April 26, 2024
283 Miles. Headed out of Lawrenceburg TN and headed back to hit a couple of sites along the NTP. After those few, we shot off the Trace for a bit of a new adventure. We rode over to the Rosenbaum House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. After seeing the KICK ASS Rosenbaum House, we were going to hit the Rattlesnake Saloon for a quick lunch before rolling back toward the Trace.
Check out the videos from this ride!
Heading out of Lawrenceburg, TN
Here we are all loaded up, rested (somewhat) and rearing to go again for one more day! Took us a little bit to get out, I think around 8:30 or so, but we were off. I am just curious if Krystal knows where she is going to end up on this ride or not! She looks happy back there waving away regardless!
Glenrock Branch
Our first stop was Glenrock Branch. It is not really anything special other than a rock balanced on top of a bottom rock. It is covered in moss and just on the opposite side of a little creek / brook. I think, either Krystal or Julie, was able to get Jason and us crossing the creek but we did not bust our butts, so it really is not worth watching! I did meet a group of bicyclists at this stop, one was more of a map dork than I am . . . . God, I love people like that!!
Jason and I got our picture made here. I also got a really good picture of the native azalea blooming!
The Sunken Trace Trail
Our next stop was at the Sunken Trace Trail. It was cool, but I now for certain that there are deeper parts of this trail in other places. Of course, we did not walk that far . . . . Hehe that is really not what we are about. If you are coming to this historic trail, I think it might be a better experience to catch the trail deeper south, where the embankments are so tall that you can’t even see out of them. My class and grad school took a little trip out to this to experience the trail.
It really is something else to walk in the past footsteps of our ancestors, literally in a ditch where it had been traversed so much it is 12 feet down.
Lane Asked What I Was Looking At …..
It was also at this stop when Lane asked me why I was looking all around as we were driving down the road. My answer to her will hide a few points. One there’s no cars coming really so you have the opportunity to look at the woods look at the plants species and see what micro climate we are in. The experience of the Natchez trace is that it starts in the Highlands and ends in the lowlands. You move through all of these micro ecologies as you travel south. I wonder how many people even know that fact, who ride the road!
Wichahpi Commemorative Stone Wall
This was one of our last morning stops along the Trace before we peeled off to head to other locations offsite. This was a commemorative wall that a gentleman built in honor of his mother. Not sure how it really kicked off with the man wanting to build it, I didn’t get into the details in the research. It was a very, very wide wall which was quite unusual. It was an interesting feature to experience in the landscape. A lot of the stone, looked like skulls, almost out the stacked rock. 
The Rosenbaum House by Frank Lloyd Wright
This was a different type of stop for us. We decided to do a visit to the Frank Lloyd Wright house, just off of the Trace. There were a few of his houses in Minnesota when I was up there, and I was able to see them from a distance, but I was never able to go inside. the ones in Minnesota were occupied.
We have not planned to do the tour, but we had it just right to actually get a tour guide. There was also more than one person that wanted to do the tour of the house, so we went ahead and did it.
There are a couple things that I want to point out that stuck with me during the tour learning about his design.
- The roof levels are directly reflection of the contours where the house was sitting before the site was ever touched.
- The house was built out of Cypress Wood which is native to the Louisiana area.
- The house was designed for this particular site so that a neighborhood house would not lose its view to the river beyond. The father lived in the house across the street, and purchased this property for his son.
- The furniture in the house was designed and fabricated for this house specifically. The house was built when plywood was being introduced to the industry. Frank Lloyd Wright used plywood on the furniture and on the interior portions of the house.
- I love that the mother of the house knitted and sewed. She had her own room for these activities.
- This house initiated the carport design. If you look at the front view, there is a little cantilevered roof, which was specifically designed for the carport. They pulled straight in and parked in front of the door.
There were so many cool features about this house, I can’t even begin to list them all. The one thing that I do remember is that it brought tears to my eyes and it was a very, very good feeling to be on site to learn about his design Process. 
The Yard and Gardens
The lawn offered terrorist sections as it moved to the back of the property. There were constructed steps directly into the yard, which was different for that day and age in the 1940s. You typically see sidewalks where there’s built steps.
The Japanese Garden was just outside the Office window and the window of the kitchen addition. It offered an elegant accent from the inside of the house. 
Drawings
I loved that in the house. They had a series of plans that Frank Lloyd Wright drew while designing the house. They have the final plans framed as well.
In the gift shop, they had a series of drawings plans and elevations of his house’s that he had designed. the drawings offer of sense of his personality. I couldn’t help but start crying while touring the site. The attention to detail and his eye for design was a magnificent experience all by itself!
Furniture Design
Frank Lloyd Wright designed many different styles of furniture and accents to go in his houses. Some of the furniture was designed specifically to reflect the exterior forms of the house. These would be carried through to the inside, hence highlighting the Indoor Outdoor Design strategy.
There are some lights here that I thought were really cool and wanted to share with everyone.
Leaving the Rosenbaum House . . .
One of my favorite things to do is cross bridges. Who would have thought that Krystal loves them just as much as me! I like the ride through mostly. The overlook is lovely, but I love the architecture of bridges.
The Rattlesnake Saloon
This was a cool little spot. I’ve seen posts and other people visit this place, and I wanted to make a special trip out to go see it. I didn’t realize it was only a half hour ride off of the Trace. This is definitely a mess. See if you ride the Natches Trace!
This was a very cool property to visit. They had an arena, they had cabins, they had the saloon, they had all kinds of things happening here. Like I mentioned before the wagon races were happening this weekend. People were coming in by the dozens. The saloon is down a little hill, and you have to ride the truck to get down to it. The food was really good too.
I think everybody enjoyed being at this site. I definitely think if you’re in the area it’s worth stopping. All of the girls I’m sure agree!! 👍 
The Ride down to the Saloon!
Tishomingo State Park – Swinging Bridge
We headed out to the swinging bridge, which is at The Tishomingo State Park. The ride back to the bridge was beautiful. There was a small fee to access the park, but I feel like it was totally worth it even just to see the bridge itself. I think we were all wearing down by this point, and we still had quite a few stops on the plan so we were going to have to make some decisions in the near future on how to finish the day and how to start shifting things in the trip. 
The 13 Unknown Confederate Gravesites
This was an interesting side along the Trace. They were 13 unknown Graves for confederate soldiers who had fallen on theTrace. This was where they were buried.
Puppy loves history, so we had to stop at this one specifically for him.
Time Crunch & Unwinding
We finally made it to our hotel, but we weren’t able to make it all the way down to the end of the planned route. We spent a little more time than expected doing the tour at the Frank Lloyd Wright house, and a super long lunch break at the rattlesnake saloon. We had to start to figure out how we wanted to make up that time, and how we wanted to end up the trip.
Krystal is really happy once we sat down for dinner. She finally got her margarita!
Adjusting the plans
We had to make a couple of decisions about the plans tonight. We had to decide one of two things if we wanted to ride the remainder of the Trace and not see any of the sides, or see the sides that we had wanted to see and cut the tray short to pick up at a later time.
We ended up, deciding that we were going to hit the Cypress Swamp and the Reservoir Overlook before we started heading back home the next day.we also thought that we would go ahead and pick up the bottom part of the Trace at a different time and still be able to stop at all the Southern sites that we had picked out as points of interest. 
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