Tupelo is where the Natchez Trace Parkway keeps its headquarters, and it is a fitting place to begin or end a day on that road. The Trace itself is older than any highway in the country, a path worn into the earth by bison, then by the Chickasaw and Choctaw, then by boatmen who floated cargo down the Mississippi to Natchez and walked home through the woods. The modern parkway follows that line for 444 miles to Nashville, a ribbon of smooth asphalt with no trucks, no billboards, no traffic lights and a speed limit of 50 miles an hour that rangers take seriously.
Tupelo, a city of about thirty-five thousand, has two claims to fame. One is that Elvis Presley was born here in 1935 in a two-room house that you can still visit, along with the church where he first sang gospel and a hardware store where his mother is said to have bought his first guitar. The other is that it was the first city to take electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority, in 1934, a fact that has made it quietly proud ever since. The Civil War also left its mark, with the Battle of Tupelo in July 1864 marked by a small park and monuments on the edge of town.
The ride is the point of the exercise. North from here the parkway runs through rolling hardwood forest and across old fields, over cypress swamps and low ridges, and the corners are gentle, long and perfectly banked. There is almost nothing to do but ease along at the limit and watch the light shift through the trees. Deer, wild turkeys and the odd armadillo wander near the road, and in spring dogwoods and redbuds line the verges. Autumn brings a quieter beauty, with sweet gum and hickory turning the woods copper, and the roads are nearly empty.
Practical things are easy in Tupelo and hard on the Trace. The city has fuel, food and hotels in abundance, but the parkway has no commercial services, so top up the tank and the stomach before you leave. Plantersville and Verona, a few kilometres away, are small places that have small-town cafés. The Trace has picnic areas and restrooms at intervals, and the visitor centre outside town is worth an hour, with maps, a film and friendly rangers.