2012 -The Tennessee State Park Series

September 22 - 27th

The Final Fourteen Parks.

We rode about 1205 miles on about every type of road Tennessee has to offer. Nice weather for the most part. Tuesday morning at Ripley was 41 degrees - the other extreme we saw 89 degrees in Athens. A flat tire in Memphis slowed us down a little but we managed to adjust and get back on our route. The only place we didn't visit as planned was Shiloh because of the flat, but we'll save that for another time.

September 9th - 12th

We rode about 868 miles which was a little more than expected. The weather was pretty much perfect. Wednesday morning was overcast and kept it cooler than expected, which was fine with us. We visited 13 parks on this ride and we are beginning to really appreciate their importance. The diversity is amazing, probably some of the most diverse in the country.
There are only 14 parks to go!
An outstanding trip!

August 24th

The Cumberland Trail SP is a hard one to pin down being a linear park. Plans are for this trail to run the full length of the Cumberland Plateau. We first tried to find a trail head at Ozone state natural area but were unsucessful there. After John and me checked maps and GPS's, we decided to head down around Spring City and travel up into the hills from there to an area call Piney Creek, where we finally found a Cumberland Trail SP sign and trail head. We rode on some pretty rough roads today but were rewarded with some interesting back country.
168 Miles total
Other Riders: John and Gail.
27 parks to go!

August 11-12

It don't get any better than this! The weather was perfect. We visited seven state parks on this two day outing. Five of these parks we had never visited before, Standing Stone, Cummins Falls, Edgar Evans, Burgess falls and Cordell Hull. The other two, Pickett and Alvin York, we have visited many times over the years.
442 miles total
Other Riders: Jeff an Susan
28 parks to go!

July 22nd

The Hiawassee and Ocoee Rivers State Park was the final park located in East Tennesse that we hadn't visited. We have visited may areas of this park in the past , but we had never visited the park headquarters area located on the Hiawassee just south of Etowah. We took the Old Federal road through Monroe and McMinn counties to Etowah. The return trip was up the central part of the valley west of McMinnville and up through the dairy country north of Athens into Loudon for lunch. We didn't cover much ground - only about 120 miles, but the roads for the most part were secondary backroads and through some nice farm country.
Other Riders: Rick ,Tammy, Tim, Jill, and Steve.
35 Parks to go.

July 16-17

We visited four state parks on this ride - Roan Mountain, Sycamore Shoals, Warriors Path, and Davy Crockett birth plance. In addition, while in Greeneville, we visited Andrew Johnson's homeplace (NPS)where he lived as a young tailor.
In many ways, this was one of the most scenic State Parks rides to date. Showers were around but good fortunate was on our side and we rode only about about 15 minutes in the rain the entire trip. We covered 435 miles, which was about 60 miles more than we planned. We diverted quite a bit in places and at one point took a gravel road for about 2-3 miles right after a heavy downpour had hit the area. We spent the night in Johnson City. We've visited all ET state parks now except for one - Hiawassee, which we hope to pick up some afternoon since it's so close. Next is the northern plateau.
36 parks to go.

June 26th

Early in June I found out an old friend had ended up in a nursing home in Manchester, TN. With his 88th birthday coming up I thought I would just ride out and pay him a visit. There are four state parks along the route so we figured we'd check them out.
They are: Cumberland Mountain, Rock Island, Old Stone Fort, and Fall Creek Falls.
On June 25th we made a knee jerk decision to hit the road because of the forecast for clear and cooler weather. Glad we did! Not a cloud in the clear blue sky and most of the day was fairly comfortable.
We were out about 12 hours but only 8 were riding. We covered 354 miles total for the day.
Only 40 parks to go.

June 18th

We visited the parks north of Knoxville up to Jellico and west. Another great ride on some new and interesting roads.
Parks visited were - Frozen head, Indian Mountain, Cove Lake, Norris Dam and Big Ridge.
264 miles total - day trip.
Other Riders:Dennis and Diana, John and Gail.
Shakedown trip for the Victory.
44 parks to go!

May 31st

This was kind of an unplanned park visit, but since we had rode up to the Colbach Harley in Morristown to do some tire kicking we thought we'd pick this one up. Besides, it was a good place to take a rest stop.
49 to go!

May 15th

Nice ride south eastern valley parks. About 205 miles total on this little day trip.
Parks Visited - Red Clay - Harrison Bay- Booker T. Washington.
Other riders: Dennis and Diana
50 more parks to go!

May 14th

It's only fitting that we start our Parks Tours at the park at our back door. Fort Loudoun is first of the Tennessee State Parks we plan to visit this summer. Official kickoff.
Only 53 partks to go!