Crossing Tennessee

2025-04-15
TN

The first stop for today was Fall Creek Falls State Park. It's located more or less in the middle between Nashville and Knoxville. It is known for the Fall Creek Falls, which is a nice waterfall. I'm not sure if the falls gave the creek it's name, or if the creek was found late in the year, or if it was named by clumsy people that ended up falling into the creek a lot. At any rate, I hiked a bit more than three miles, but I did go to the bottom of the falls then back to the top, so there was over 900 feet of climb at the park.

It was possible to see all of this falls, unlike Cane Creek Falls off to the right.

From there I continued my journey through the middle of the state, taking the rural roads and occasionally going through a town. I stopped at Lost Sea Adventure, which is more or less in the middle between Knoxville and Chattanooga. It's a large underground body of water. The cave tour before you get to the lake manages to use pretty much every cave dad joke, so I was at home. While they do have some cave formations, they are small and not exciting. However, here was a whiskey still remaining from when they built a pub in the cave; the constant temperature was a big draw. That business collapsed; I guess people didn't like staggering back up out of the cave.

The high point was definitely the boat ride on the underground lake. It's shallow up near where the boat docks are, but gets to be 75 feet deep at the other end. They stock it with 500 or so rainbow trout which get fed a little bit by each boat tour. Clever marketing to make sure everyone sees some fish. Of course there's no food for them down there otherwise, so shoveling it in from the boats is a good idea. Photos are kind of at the mercy of their lights but hopefully you get the idea.

As the boat goes over the "feeding area"

Tennessee is home to the most explorable caves of any state, with over 10,000. Most of them are on private property, like this one. Only a few are attractions. And a shout out to V for providing several of the fun facts you've been reading along the way.

My next stop would have been the Bush Beans Visitor Center. Tip of the hat to Scott B for putting it on my radar. It's the perfect road trip stop; however, they close at 4:00 and I prioritized the other two stops and I definitely needed the hike. I could go tomorrow, but it's 3 hours round trip so I think it will wait for the next trip.

The trip to Cherokee took me straight through the mountains on a very windy road. I got an upper body workout to match my legs earlier. There were a lot of fast sports cars that I had to let by; I'm an old guy in an Outback so I'm not pushing the corners. Apparently there is a casino in Cherokee. I only know this because I'm right across the street. Probably should have booked there.