Our trips to “Middle” Tennessee parks are nearing completion. Which
means traveling further and staying out longer to reach the State Parks
of East and West Tennessee? The cool part – we will be getting closer
to the Smoky Mountains.
Such was the case on Monday, August 31, 2009. We headed for
Chattanooga and had three State Parks on our agenda. As I have pointed
out before, we always print out the directions to each Park. But, as is
often the case, the roadside “Brown” signs make other suggestions.
The first park on our list was Red Clay State Park. As is
often the case, the ‘Brown’ sign indicated for us to exit the road before
our map had told us to. We needed to make a stop anyway, so we took
the exit. While inside the gas station we again asked for directions. A
very nice lady (her name was Alice Cooper) knew exactly where we
needed to go. But, Alice couldn’t figure out WHY we would want to go
to this park. Meanwhile, a gentleman walks in and joins in the
conversation. He also thinks we are wasting our time visiting the
Red Clay State Park. The battle continued about the best path to
the park and wondering why anyone would want to go to this park for
at least 15 minutes.
(The gentleman does give us a good tip for a brand new State Park
called the Cumberland Trail State Park.)
After leaving the gas station we headed for the dreaded Red Clay State
Park. After a couple of ‘lost moments’ we find our destination. The ride
to this park was unbelievable, and would have been worth the trip all by
itself. However, the park was actually very educational with information
on the Cherokee Indians and the troubles they faced in the 1800’s. We
even stayed and watch the video which was very well done. The Park
Ranger was very informative and again told us about the new
Cumberland Trails State Park. She actually spent a day volunteering
to work on the Cumberland Trail.
(Guess it's not easy to appreciate what is in your own back yard.)
Our next park on the list was Harrison Bay. This park was located on
the Chickamauga Lake. This park has a marina, restaurant, pool and
camping facilities. This park is very nice and very serene.
We headed around the river to Booker T. Washington State Park. We
stopped in at the Information/Park Office and spoke with a very
knowledgeable young Park Ranger. She had plenty of information about
many of the parks that we have not yet seen. This day park has a
beautiful swimming pool and docks to fish from.
Since the sun was still up and we were so close, we decided to add the
‘new’ State Park to our list for today. Cumberland Trail State Park is
near Soddy-Daisy and in the hills. This is the beginning of the
Cumberland Trail which is still in the building phase. All told this trail
will encompass 300 miles of trails. The entrance to this park was gravel
and poorly maintained. Not to mention the entrance was at a 45 degree
angle off a very narrow highway. We decided to take our picture of the
sign and head back for home.
As always we found an alternate route to take back to Nashville. Hwy 30
led us up (and down) three mountains, winding itself tightly around each
curve. I guess I wasn’t quite ready for such a ride because I had to ask
Tim to slow down before I did something he would probably regret! Even
though the curves nearly made me ill; I couldn’t help but admire God’s
handy work all around.
I've added a couple of pictures taken along the way.
We logged 428 miles on this trip and put in about 12 1/2 hours on the bike.
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