Middle Tennessee Waterfalls and Civil War Site

This was a summer day trip in search of waterfalls as we ventured west toward middle Tennessee. Our first stop was Burgess Falls State Park
http//www.state.tn.us/environment/parks/BurgessFalls/, which was just a few miles off I-40 on State Route 135 near Cookeville. This area has numerous nurseries for landscape lovers. If you stop you will buy something, which we did. The park was a beautiful natural area with a trail leading out to a number of different overlooks to picture taking sites. It was an easy walk without a lot of elevation changes, not more than 1/2 of mile at most.

After leaving Burgess Falls we traveled on to Rock Island State Park http//www.state.tn.us/environment/parks/RockIsland/. This park was within an hour from Burgess Falls and was located off U. S. 70S on State Route 287. This park has easy trails with numerous overlooks that will eventually lead you down to the riverbed if you've got the energy to climb on rocks, which we did not at the time. This is below the Great Falls Dam that is located just below the 19th century cotton textile mill that it powered over 100 years ago.l A beautiful rugged area.

Our next stop was for the stomach. We had read about a country store restaurant in the area by the name of Miller's Grocery in Christiana, Tn. http//www.millersgrocery.com/. It was good ole country food and it was great. We had fried green tomatoes, some corn battered nuggets that I tried to make later (which didn't taste anything like theirs) and of course, the ole staple, southern cornbread and ice tea. The desserts were too many to mention here, but they were really good.

After filling our bellies we traveled further west towards Nashville thinking we were headed toward I-40 to head home when we came upon Stones River Military Park http//www.nps.gov/stri/index.htm just southeast of Nashville. This was a suprise and of course we had to stop and check it out. One of the largest battles of the civil war was fought here with over 24,000 soldiers dying within a 2 day period. We also got to see an enactment of the cannons being fired, which were quite loud. This Civil War site is a must see for those history buffs.

This was a very long day trip, but one filled with many memories as we headed back along I40 East to home.