Huntsville, AL to NYC via New Orleans in 3 weeks, any suggestions

We have 9 days to go from Huntsville AL to NYC at the end of the month. The catch is we have to be in New Orleans on day 2, so really this is a week long trip from the Big Easy to the Big Apple. We have some thoughts but we're looking for some advice.
We'd like to do this but we do not have enough time:
New Orleans to Greenville, MS via US 61. We have driven this before but at night. We want to visit Doe's Eat Place in Greenville.
Greenville east across Mississippi via US 82 to the Natchez Trace Parkway.
Natchez Trace to Nashville. We've driven the entire Natchez Trace in Mississippi and Alabama but never TN. We always enjoyed the slower pace.
Nashville to Lexington to visit some of the bourbon distilleries in KY.
Lexington east via I64 to Virginia someplace where we'd pick up the Blue Ridge Parkway/Skyline Drive north.
Back on interstates at Front Royal, VA to the NYC area, probably via I81/I84 instead of 95.

Any thoughts? Like we said, we know we do not have time for all of this, at least not at the slow pace we'd like to take it at.

Chris & Jackie

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

If you really have 7 full days for the New Orleans to New York drive, I see no reason not to take the roads you describe at a pace that appeals to you. Even if you stay on the Blue Ridge/Skyline all the way from Lexington, VA to Front Royal (and this section is your biggest time sink) the entire drive would take a shade over 4 days without pushing yourselves too hard, leaving you two days worth of time to sprinkle along the way touring (but not sampling) bourbon distilleries, parks and historic sites. Is there something else that would limit your daily driving range such as the number of hours you're willing or able to put in behind the wheel? Personally, this is just the kind of RoadTrip that really appeals to me - taking one's time, poking around the back roads, stopping every couple of hours to get out of the car and actually meet people, learn something, or just enjoy nature - and still put down several hundred miles by the end of the day.

AZBuck

Hopefully you are right. We rarely drive more than 300 miles a day but our problem is that we stay too long when we do stop. By 4 or 5 PM we often find ourselves 100 miles or less from where we started that day and we almost always end up driving a couple of hours after dark. We will try to post a trip log when we get out there.