Miko and Me: Rock Island State Park

I meant to stay at Kathy's for just a couple of days, but then Kathy had all that chocolate and I just really felt I had to help her out. So, I stayed cause that is just the type of person I am. I ended up staying at her house for six days. We had made a pretty good dent in the chocolate so we decided that we should actually go camping and explore the Cumberland Plateau -land of Deep Gorges and Tall Waterfalls.

We had really wanted to go to Fall Creek Falls State Park which has been rated by many different sources as the “Best State Park” in all of Tennessee. The problem was that it was the weekend and it was Spring Break in Tennessee. Luckily for us (well sort of), the weather forecast was rainy and cold so there were some cancellations and we were able to find two campsites together. Of course these campsites were not the prime ones – we really struggled to get into them. Thank goodness for some kind Samaritans who helped us, otherwise I'm embarrassed to say but it would have been a lost cause and we would have had to go back home with our tails between our legs.

Kathy and my sites in the park - you can't see the trees right next to the road on the opposite side

or the sharp curve in the road - it was tough

The first day we actually left Fall Creek Falls State Park and headed up the road to Rock Island State Park. Why? Waterfalls!!! Most of this post is going to be all about waterfalls so if that isn't your “thing”, then perhaps you will want to mosey on to some other important part of your life. Rock Island has two waterfalls. The first falls is called Great Falls and is thirty feet tall. It was a little unnerving to walk down to the base of the falls because of the warning signs that they posted.

OK - seems to me, lifejacket or not, you are going to die

Well worth the danger - a lovely waterfall

The other falls is called Twin Falls and is eighty feet tall. There was a trail that meandered along the opposite shore from the waterfalls which was great because these falls were huge and you couldn't have gotten the whole scope and feel of them being up close to them. They seemed to come out of the solid rock about forty feet below the top of the gorge instead of over the top of the gorge. I later learned that they were not natural falls, in a way, but were created when they dammed the Caney River which caused the water to find a different way to flow downstream.