Near the Mississippi border, Big Hill Pond is a lesser known state park that has a swamp with a boardwalk along with an observation tower. The park is looking to redo the whole boardwalk with something that will hold up better and they've already improved the visitor center. They are also looking to put electricity to their camping sites. There are several nice hikes around the lake and the park is used frequently by horseback riders.
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Tennessee State Parks offer a huge variety of programs that are either cheap or free and if you don't take advantage of them you're missing out. I went on a wildflower hike at Harpeth River State Park and the ranger identified a lot of wildflowers and showed us an app that will also identify plants. We hiked to the tunnel and the bluffs. It was a great way to spend a morning.
Unclaimed Baggage is a strange phenomenon. The only place to buy baggage that the airlines can't return to owner, the store is enormous with 7000 new items coming in every day. The items range from electronics to jewelry to skis to books to just weird. The story also has a tiny museum of some of the weird things they've found. I got a lot of books, some really nice duffel bags and a fantastic couple pair of sunglasses for super cheap at the bargain basement. If you like thrifting, this is a Mecca.
Your feelings about animals in captivity probably vary, but I'm in favor of zoos and rescue places tend to be a last resort for animals that couldn't be put back in the wild. It's not ideal, but options are limited. That being said, Tigers for Tomorrow is probably the only place you're going to get this close to some of these predators to get a gauge on just how impressive and intimidating they are. As the name suggests, there are a lot of tigers there, but also wolves, bears, and a variety of smaller big cats. Maybe the most shocking to me were the hyenas, which I'm not sure I've even seen in a zoo. I also got to feed a capybara. Capybara's are charming animals that look like a rectangle on little legs.
In my mission to visit all the Tennessee state parks, I went with Girls Who Hike Tennessee to Burgess Falls for the first time. Burgess Falls is a popular park because the hike isn't that hard to get to several enormous waterfalls. The hardest part of the hike is the stairs that are very uneven climbing. Expect a lot of crowds and be careful at the top of the main falls. The park doesn't have a visitor center, so getting your stamp involves going to the park office and using the outside stamp box. The park is 20 minutes from Cookeville, so there is a major town nearby for food.
On my quest to get all of my state park stamps this year, I was back at Long Hunter getting the stamp I failed to get in January. I walked the Deer Trail this time which is about a mile long and very easy. Buttercups were blooming and you have a pretty good view of the lake for a lot of the walk. No actual deer, but there were deer tracks on the trail.
One of the only natural science centers in Middle Tennessee, Earth Experience tries to educate anyone they can about the diversity of Tennessee both past and present in geology and paleontology. Using only a small space, the museum has a full size T Rex and has just acquired a triceratops head. Crammed with all types of geology samples and fossils, the museum is also a working lab and has a partnership with Montana in getting dinosaur bones. There's also a cool gift shop that has all kinds of rock samples and cast versions of bones.
I've gone on a second hike with Girls Who Hike Tennessee, this time to Denny Cove Falls at South Cumberland State Park. I always forget how hard hiking South Cumberland is on your ankles since most of the hike is walking over uneven rock beds. It was a great day for a hike and Denny Cove Falls is bigger than I expected. There is not much of an area to stand around the falls so it got very crowded quickly when another large group showed up. The hike is excellent though with good views and you can see rock climbers while headed to the falls.
Norris Dam State Park in Rocky Top, TN is a CCC state park. We stayed in one of the historic CCC cabins for President's weekend and had a great time at the park. The dam itself was made in the 30s on the Clinch River and we took a hike on Songbird Trail that walks by the river. The park has an east and west side divided by the river with the older area on the east. It was a quiet camp ground with trails that wandered around the lake dam. There is also a museum owned by the park. Lenoir Museum is a smaller version of the Museum of Appalachia (which is five minutes down the road) and chronicles the life of people living in the mountains of east Tennessee. The Museum of Appalachia is also worth a visit while you are there. The museum is enormous with special care being made to take down the stories associated with the countless items that are on display.
Outside of Columbia, Stillhouse Hollow Falls is a state natural area with a very pretty waterfall. The hike is not much more than a mile, but it is rather steep on the way back. There is an overlook of the falls, then a hike to the bottom of the falls itself. We had the falls to ourselves for a little while, and while the site is fairly well traveled, you will probably be able to see the falls without much interruption.
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AuthorA librarian doing the travel. Archives
May 2024
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