On our recent trip, we had a plan. Sometimes that doesn’t always work out! Our plan was to go by our campground at The Old Stone Fort, set up camp, and then take Seth on to his camp at Vanderbilt in Nashville. Everything was going great until we were about 15 minutes from the campground. That’s when the cats and dogs started coming down along with a few elephants and hippos I think! It rained and rained and rained! Oh, then it rained some more!
When we pulled into the campground, it was still coming down! There is only one thing I hate worse than breaking down camp in the rain and that is setting up camp in the rain! I had a reserved campsite, which I don’t normally like to do. I prefer the campgrounds that are first come first served. When we found our campsite, number 44, it was under about 8 inches of water! We did not bring the boats this time, so I knew this campsite was not going to work. We also had a high chance of thunder showers for the whole week! I did not want to end up on an unexpected float on out air mattresses!
We drove around the campground in the rain and found site number 8! It was wet, but no standing water and a better elevation, so I went to see if I could change! Luckily, we had no trouble changing! We came back over the beautiful one lane bridge into the campground, still pouring down rain, and went to our site!
We left Seth in the car with Beast so he would not show up at camp soaking wet or covered in mud. Elisha and I would wait until the rain lessoned and jump out of the car and put up as much of the tent as we could before it started pouring again! We actually put the tent on the asphalt RV slab even thought I had to rig the tie downs so the tent wouldn’t blow away. Kind of hard to nail tent stakes into asphalt! After about an hour of on and off set up and on and off rain, we were both soaked, but the tent was up! We unloaded everything else that we could that rain wouldn’t hurt and then headed out again!
We made it to Vanderbilt just about perfectly on time. The rain had stopped and we got Seth checked in and to his dorm. Beast had a blast waiting with Elisha while all the people came by and petted him! After we finished everything at Vanderbilt, Elisha, Beast and I headed back to the Old Stone Fort.
By the time we got back, the rain had stopped completely, but everything was still damp. The tent had held out against the rain so I figured we would be okay if we got more during the week. (The weather, which predicted rain every day was so wrong! We had one shower all week and no other rain! While I was glad of that, it would be nice if the weather men could get it just a little more correct so we could plan a little better!) We finished setting up camp and then walked around for a while, but it was close to dark. We enjoyed some rest time around a nice fire even though it was still a little warm and a lot humid and then hit the bed!
Elisha and I spent the week hiking at Old Stone Fort, Stones River Battlefield, Fall Creek Falls and several others places. We came back to our base at Old Stone Fort every night and relaxed and had some good food! We also did some canoeing/kayaking and some exploring for future trips. It was a great week, but I have to say, it was nice to go to a hotel on Thursday and take a good long shower! I had to bath Beast twice to get all the dirt off of him from our adventures. I would have thought the river would take care of it, but every time him jumped in the river, he got back out and rolled in the mud!
Old Stone Fort is one of the heaviest concentration of waterfalls I have seen. They are literally all the way around it. Add to that the historic fort and other history of the area and it was an amazing place to stay. I have to say, it is at a lower elevation than I am used to camping in the summer. I was a little warm, but I would definitely come back here again. I’d like to see it in the early Spring or especially in the Fall! It would make a great winter camping area, so we may have to check that out! It was an amazing trip with so much great time with Elisha and some with both of the boys! Looking forward to many more!
