Manchester, TN

A quick update, before I get to what I did around Manchester.  As mentioned in my previous blog, I went back to look at the Mountain City Campground that I was at before the storms hit.  We had to wait until the tree was cut before we could leave so it was about 6:00 pm before we could get the car out of the garage.  We had heard that Mountain City had been hit pretty bad.  The campground where I was staying was hit, but the owners had already cleaned up quite a bit.  I couldn’t tell for sure if my RV would have been damaged if I would have stayed, but it looked like there were 3 6 – 8 inch limbs that were down in the trees surrounding my spot.  One RV did have damage and had a tarp over the roof.  I am very glad I left a few hours before the storm hit!!!  But the campground was lucky just down the road many trees were in half and building were damaged.

On my trip to Tennessee, I had to go a bit out of the way due to storm damage and several roads were closed.  I ended up going South and then turning back North up I-75.  Ringgold, GA was one of the towns that was hit by tornadoes.  The pictures below were taken from my car going down I-75 at the Ringgold exit.

Highway Signs --

Hotel --

It was amazing to see the damage and once again made me think about what I would do if a storm like this hit while I was in my RV.

I decided to stayed in Manchester, TN because it was central to several places I wanted to go.  I went to Chattanooga a couple of times and once on the way back I stopped at the National Cornbread festival.  (Note – I stopped there after my Weight Watcher meeting, so I would have time to work off the samples of cornbread I ate before my next meeting!)

Old Stone Fort Archaeological Park is an interesting place.  Not only is it a 2000+ year old Indian ceremonial site, but it has some beautiful scenery.  The Indians built mounds and walls that formed an enclosure that was more than 1 mile around.  The walls were a bit hard to photograph, you can’t really tell it is more than just a hill so I included the one with the sign!

Ringgold Falls is a waterfall that is on private property.  The people who own it are nice enough to allow people to walk to the falls.

Sewanee Natural Bridge was a neat little place.  It wasn’t a long hike, but a nice “bridge”.  Actually the trail took you across the top of it.

I also went to Foster falls and did a short hike.

Another place I went hiking was in Short Springs Natural Area.  I was looking forward to seeing Machine Falls and took a very steep trail down to see it.  Once I got down to the bottom I saw a sign that said Machine Falls 100 yards, but then I saw that I was going to have to walk through the creek to get to it.  I don’t know if that was normal or if it was because they have had so much rain.  Even though it was a tough trail down, I decided it wasn’t worth walking through the creek, so I headed back up.

From Manchester, I headed to Pickwick Landing State Park and then to Southaven, MS (just south of Memphis).