San Diego's Weekend Driver

Well, spring break is over and we’re all on that last push before summer begins. If you’re already planning a trip for the summer, consider this one… the Natchez Trace, 400-plus miles from Nashville to Natchez, Miss. I took this a few years ago, so enjoy my blog postings for this week’s Weekend Trip.

I hooked up with my college buddy Cole Warner, an editor at the Times-Picayune, for breakfast. He and his family are doing much better than when I left them in February 2006. Their house was a few blocks from a levee break and they’d moved what was left over to Baton Rouge. Cole looked much [...]

Back in late 2005 and 2006, I spent a couple of months in New Orleans helping, I hope, on the cleanup from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. While there, I never got down to the tip of Louisiana, through Plaquemains Parrish. I spent the day cruising down Highway 23 to the southernmost point of Louisiana. As [...]

It was a bit strange heading over I-10 into New Orleans. A couple of years back, I took this route a few times while working on the cleanup from Hurricane Katrina. Still a lot of traffic here, even in the middle of the day. Oh, and by the way, before heading over to New Orleans, [...]

Another gentle, beautiful day cruising on the Natchez Trace. The southern portion of the Trace goes through the bayou country of Mississippi. The gentle hills that the Trace runs through up north have given way to a flatter, though still enjoyable, drive. The folks who designed the road created a route that has gentle curves, [...]

A great day on the Trace. My car was a snowdrift (white snow on a white car) but was quickly cleared. I did call the Visitor Center to see if the road was clear… it was. After checking out the beautiful snow scene around my hotel, I scraped off the car and headed out. The [...]

After an overnight in Columbia, Tenn., and heavy rain all night, the weather broke and I decided to head south on the Trace. It was an overcast day, but just as enjoyable. South from Columbia, the Trace continues to meander over the rolling hills of southern Tennessee. The history continues to be amazing, with frequent [...]

A beautiful day greeted me as I began my trek down the Trace. After recommendations by everyone I met in Nashville, I stopped in at Loveless Cafe, near the north end of the Trace Parkway, and had breakfast, even though it was lunch. And the biscuits are everything that everybody says they are. One of [...]

After doing nothing on day 2 except driving around Nashville in the rain and light snow, I headed out on Day 3 to the NissanPlant in Smyrna, Tenn. I was lucky enough to have a personal tour by the PR director, who took me around the mile-long plant that makes the Xterra, Frontier and Altima. [...]

After (thankfully) a nonstop flight from San Diego to Nashville, I found myself in Music City at dinner time. And just across the road from my hotel was a true Tennesee landmark, the Nashville outpost of Neely’s Bar-Be-Que. I’d seen a piece on the restaurant on the Food Network and couldn’t pass up giving it [...]