Tennessee State Parks - Cedars of Lebanon, Edgar Evins, Cumberland Mountain, and Fall Creek Falls
One of my goals in homeschooling is to visit all the state parks in Tennessee with my children before they graduate high school! We've loved keeping track in our State Park Passport book and have fallen in love with many of the parks, visiting them on multiple occasions! At the end of this post I'll link some of the trips that have taken us through the state in case you want to plan your next adventure!
The passports are free and usually available at the state park. If they don't have copies you can also request from the website to have passports mailed to you before your visit!
My other favorite resource is TN History for Kids! Before we left for our trip I read the information about the areas we would be traveling to and enjoyed talking about the historical significance with my family as we spent the next few hours in the car! And yes, I am happy to laugh at myself on the nerdiness of that visual! I'm a firm believer in making a learning experience a fun adventure though!!! Hopefully when the kids are old and look back on their vacations they'll see we had a balance of amusement park vacations and natural history vacations! LOL!
1. Cedars of Lebanon
I was hoping to stop at the Wilson County history museum before we went to the park but because of COVID it was closed (be aware that it doesn't state that on Google so call ahead if you are interested in going!) I think the county museums are an overlooked aspect of free Tennessee history field trips! We love going to the Williamson County Archives/History Museum and learning about the people that came before us and named these important TN landmarks! Here is more information on Wilson County from TN History for Kids.
Our first stop in the park was to the Dixon Merritt Nature Center! Dixon Merritt was a founding member of the Tennessee Ornithological Society and gained fame with a limerick he wrote about the pelican! The bronze statue of the pelican is so pretty in the butterfly garden at the nature center!
The highlight of Cedars of Lebanon is the cave systems that have formed from the unique geographical region in the Central Basin of Tennessee. Cedar Glades are found throughout Middle Tennessee - to learn more I suggest this PDF from MTSU and also this PDF from the Cedars of Lebanon park.
Since the caves don't open until Memorial Day we are planning another trip back in the summer and will bring our cave helmets that we bought at Mammoth Cave a few years ago!
2. Edgar Evins
Edgar Evins State Park is only 41 miles from Cedars of Lebanon and makes a great stop to do two parks in one day.
As we drove into Edgar Evins, we noticed a sign in the park about being in the eastern section of the Highland Rim. I taught our Tennessee history class about the physical regions of TN last year and found this wonderful article from Bill Carey who writes the TN History for Kids booklets. (Read more about the physical regions!) Christian remembered watching the video of History Bill making his way from the coastal plains in Memphis all the way to the Unaka Mountains. By driving from Wilson County to DeKalb County, we moved from the Central Basin to the Highland Rim and noticed a drastic change in elevation!
The first stop in the park was the visitors center for our passport stamp and to climb the observation tower! In the background you can see the Cordell Hull dam on the Cumberland River. Cordell Hull is another Tennessee name we hear a lot! We've been in the Cordell Hull building at the capitol to visit with our State Senator and Representative and there's also a Cordell Hull state park! TN History for Kids has a great biography to learn more about this important Tennessean.
We didn't really hike at Cedars of Lebanon so we had plenty of time to hike the Storybook Trail at Edgar Evins! Several of our state parks have installed storybook trails for students to read a nature book while they hike around a 1/2-1 mile wooded path. This trail tells the story of "Anybody Home" about a possum looking for a place to have her babies!
The small nature center and aviary by the storybook trail are not to be missed at Edgar Evins! The owl and falcon gave us quite a show while we were there! I can tell they like performing for an audience!
3. Cumberland Mountain State Park
Visiting both Cedars of Lebanon and Edgar Evins was plenty for one day of travel! In planning the trip I knew there were things around Crossville that we wanted to explore so I reserved a two night stay at an awesome Airbnb called Scarlett Acres Farm!
Staying on the farm to play with the goats, chickens, alpacas, and rabbits was just as much an attraction as any of the museums and parks we went to! I know we probably won't ever have a farm or homestead but I love being able to give my kids the experience of one through Airbnb vacations! We enjoyed relaxing and playing board games on our first night and got ready for day 2 - visiting Cumberland Mountain State Park!
The area around the park is rich in history! After the depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had many different projects for the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and the Cumberland Homesteads was a successful endeavor that allowed poor families to make a fresh start. (Read about the homesteads here.) We enjoyed watching a video in the museum and then climbing the water tower. The rooms also had interesting artifacts from the 1930s-40s and information about the different families that settled the land. My favorite story was a newspaper article about a woman who wasn't sure she wanted to marry her fiance after he was accepted to the program (There were over 2000 applicants to the homestead program and they only accepted 250 men.) She visited her fiance at the homesteads and met the other families and decided that if they could endure the hard work of building this town, she could too. So, she left her cushy job at Woolworth's in Knoxville and married her love to build a new legacy with the other homesteaders. Reading all the articles and stories made an impression that this was truly a new generation of pioneers. And to see that what they built is still standing today shows how well they were committed to working hard for the future of their families.
4. Fall Creek Falls
After more fun at Scarlett Acres Airbnb we packed up and drove about 30 miles to Fall Creek Falls. It was beautiful weather so we made up for the hiking we didn't do in Crossville and enjoyed the 2+ mile loop at Fall Creek Falls!
On this hike we parked at the nature center and got our passport stamped, walked across the suspension bridge and saw the Cane Creek Cascades, Cane Creek Falls, and Fall Creek Falls!
Fall Creek Falls was very impressive but we actually preferred Cane Creek because the overlook was peaceful and relaxing and it seemed like it hadn't been touched by any humans! If you go, I highly recommend sitting peacefully at the Cane Creek Falls Overlook and taking in the beauty of nature and the waterfalls! Bill Carey wrote about the falls and more about the geographical region in this post. We did drive through the Sequatchie Valley when we left Crossville and entered the Fall Creek Falls park. There were a lot of ups and downs and switchbacks from one side of the plateau to the other! The kids kept complaining of ear popping and car sickness! Be prepared! LOL!
We had more time to visit some other state parks, but I could tell the family was ready to go home and rest from our fun adventures! We're looking forward to visiting more waterfalls this summer and going back to the caves around Cedars of Lebanon! If you ever want to adventure with us let me know!
Here are some of my posts on other state parks:
Natchez Trace/Johnsonville (and we stopped at Mousetail Landing too but I didn't blog about it)
Pickwick Landing/Big Hill Pond
Standing Stone/Pickett (Also Cumberland Gap National Park and Big South Fork National Park)
Another really fun resource is this handout from the department of tourism! While you're driving the back roads of TN you will sometimes see signs for a certain "trail." This area of Tennessee is the "Pie in the Sky" trail and you can read more with this PDF!
Comments
Post a Comment