Ryan's practice turkey from Saturday was still sitting in the fridge on Sunday morning, and it was too salty to eat on its own. Nobody argued when I said we were going out for lunch. That is how a brine gone wrong turned into one of my favorite days this fall.
We came home from church, changed into jeans and were in the Pilot by 12:15. Instead of the quick way, up the back roads through Thompson's Station, we drove south to Columbia and west on Highway 50 to meet the Natchez Trace Parkway near the Gordon House, an old brick house by the Duck River from the days when the Trace was still a road people walked. From there we turned north.
Thirty minutes of the Trace
The parkway runs 444 miles from Natchez, Mississippi, almost to Nashville, and there is nothing on it. No billboards, no gas stations and no trucks, since commercial traffic isn't allowed. The speed limit is 50, and after a week of school traffic that felt like a vacation all by itself. It follows the line of an old trail that boatmen walked home on after floating their goods down the Mississippi, and I gave the kids exactly that much history before Jack asked for a snack. The only signs along the way are small wooden mileposts counting up from Natchez, and Jack read every one out loud until his sister asked him, nicely, to stop.
Early November is when the color comes in around here. The hickories had gone bright yellow, the maples were red at the edges, and the sumac along the shoulders was the color of ketchup. We stopped at two pull-offs so Nora could take pictures. She now has forty photos of trees and is proud of all forty. About 21 miles and thirty minutes after we got on, we took the Highway 46 exit and drove down into Leiper's Fork.
Lunch at the general store
Leiper's Fork is a village of a few blocks along Old Hillsboro Road, with art galleries, old houses and an old general store that serves lunch. You order at the counter, find a seat where you can and wait for your name. On a fall Sunday it was busy, but nobody was in a hurry, including us.
Ryan got a pulled pork plate with beans and slaw, I got a meatloaf plate, Nora got a grilled cheese, and Jack got a cheeseburger that he gave an 8. Lunch for four was $38. Nothing fancy, and exactly right.
The fried pies were the reason we came. They're half-moon hand pies with crimped edges, apple or peach, fried until the crust blisters. In a good fried pie the filling is made from dried fruit, cooked down with sugar and spice until it's thick like jam, and that's why it works. Fresh fruit would throw off steam and juice inside the dough, and you'd end up with a soggy pie with a hole in it. Dried fruit stays put, so the crust can get crisp all the way around. Since the local thing was the pie, our one-bite rule didn't need enforcing. We bought four, $4.50 each, and ate them on a bench outside. Jack gave the apple a 9. Nora said the peach was better, and for once Jack didn't argue.
We walked up and down the street afterward, looked in the galleries and admired a painting of a cow that cost more than our grocery budget for a month. Then we took the back roads home through Thompson's Station, about seventeen miles, and pulled into the driveway at 3:30. Waylon met us at the door like we'd been gone a week.
Sixty-four dollars, all in. A day trip doesn't need a hotel or a ticket. It needs a pretty road, one good lunch and something fried for dessert.
What it cost
- Gas: $8 (about 60 miles for the loop, roughly 2.7 gallons at $2.85)
- Lodging: $0
- Food: $56 (lunch for four $38, four fried pies $18)
- Admissions and parking: $0 (the Trace is free, and so is the curb in Leiper's Fork)
- Total: $64
- Food per person: $14
