Our trip to Fall Creek Falls State Park!

We woke up early last Saturday, and knew something was up. Mum got on the computer and got some work done, then she started gathering stuff up...our water bottle, our backpack, extra jackets and shoes.

We all loaded in the car and headed out to Fall Creek Falls State Park. The park is about an hour away, even though it's only about 33 miles. It takes a longer time to get there because we had to drive over the mountain that's just to the west of us. Much of the drive was 20 MPH and twisty/turny.

But very beautiful!!!

We finally got there and Mum went into the visitors center to get a map.

We had heard there was a 3 mile trail, but had trouble finding it. We're finding that the parks in Tennessee don't have a lot of signs and directions. Mum asked a nice man and we finally headed out on the Paw Paw Trail, very fitting, don't ya think?

The trail was one person/one dog lane, so Mum let me take the lead (since I don't pull her down hill, BOL)! She went second and Gracie followed behind Mum. We had a nice little train going and finished the three mile trail pretty quickly. We took a couple of off trail trails to some overlooks, but couldn't really see much because of the trees in the way, but Gracie tried!!!

After that trail, we wanted to check out the Falls that everyone had told us about. To get there we had to cross a 120 foot suspension bridge. We took a little break at the smaller falls and watched all the people crossing the bridge. Not a lot of water in the falls since it's been so dry this summer.

Mum decided that we'd give the bridge a try...if we can't handle it, no biggie, we'll just turn around.

Everyone hanging out around the bridge saw that we were going to give it a try, so they all stayed off the bridge and let us wait until it stopped swaying...then we ventured out. I went first and was doing well, Mum went second with Gracie behind her, just like on the trail.

We got about a sixth of the way across and Gracie bellied down on the bridge with all her paws out beside her and wouldn't move. Have to say it was kind cute, poor girl has some issues (but we knew that :). So Mum turned around and got Gracie up on all fours again, we turned around and walked back with Mum's hand on Gracie's back. That helped her a lot!!! She walked right back like a pro.

We saw a couple of dogs go across, but I have to say that they were not happy about it, and Mum wasn't going to make us, that's fur sure!

So we hung around the entrance of the bridge and watched the people, and talked to some nice folks. One of the nice folks wanted to take photos of the three of us, which is way cool...since Mum is always behind the camera! (We are grateful to the 'girls' from McMinnville, for taking our cool pics!)

Since we couldn't get to the Falls from the bridge, Mum decided we'd jump back in the Rover and drive to the other side, see the Falls and do some hiking over there. Good thing she stocked up on her vitamins online! We got to the railing where we could see the falls and the first thing I did was stick my head out the railing and try to get down the cliffs. OK, that's about 20 stories down...such a silly boy!

Then I looked up and WOW!!!

More WOW!

And to the left, WOW!

After hanging out and looking around for a while, talking with some folks and getting some nice head pats...we ventured out on a shorter hike. Then it was getting close to dinner time, so we headed home.

On the way out of the park, Mum stopped and we got to see this super cool old schoolhouse. Mum loves these old log cabins, can't get enough of 'em!

We got home about 5 PM, got dinner and headed out on our evening walk. Got in about 7 miles that day. Fun, fun, fun!!!

One more pic of me and my pack :)

We're hoping that we can check out the park in the Winter, we hear they get snow and the Falls turn to ice, that would be so cool! Literally, BOL!