Early Saxifrage – Native Plant of the Day 04/02/2022
Photo from 4/2/2014. Location: Old Stone Fort State Park, Coffee County, TN.
More photos / info at the Micranthes virginiensis detail page.
Early Saxifrage – Micranthes virginiensis
Price’s Wood Sorrel, a native species, has been added to the USWildflowers database (05/19/2017.) Scientific name is Oxalis macrantha. Photo below was taken in Long Hunter State Park on May 11, 2017. Go to the Price’s Wood Sorrel detail page for more information and photos.
Price’s Wood Sorrel – Oxalis macrantha
After a trip to visit relatives in Roanoke, Virginia, my wife and I were looking for an interesting stop to spend the night within a few hours’ drive from our northwest Georgia home. We stopped at the I-81 Tennessee Welcome Center and looking over their information we decided Tennessee’s Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park would be a good place to try.
Sunset at Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park
My wife and I finished up a stint helping my daughter’s family at their Duck-Duck-Goose children’s consignment sale and had a little time before our next commitment, so we decided to take a few days camping our way to visit some family in Roanoke, Virginia. I’d been wanting to check out Roan Mountain State Park, and since that’s about half way to Roanoke, we targeted spending two nights at this Tennessee State Park before we moved on. My report follows:
Roan Massif stays in the clouds 70% of the time – view from Roan Mountain State Park
On Tuesday night, Nov 11, Cindy and I stayed at Old Stone Fort State Park campground in our T@b travel trailer. We’d had the T@b for a few weeks, and for various reasons had not yet used it for overnight camping (although we did use it as a “respite” while we worked a consignment sale event for about a week.) I was anxious to try it out on a short trip so we could start tuning our procedures and expectations for some longer trip. We needed to make a run over west of Nashville to drop off a few items for my sister, and Old Stone Fort State Park is right along the path, so this fit the bill nicely, and allowed us to show off our new trailer to Sis.
Our T@b at Old Stone Fort State Park
On April 2, the next day after our Walls of Jericho hike, Dave Ridge and I went by Tennessee’s Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park in Manchester. After the strenuous hike of the day before, we wanted something that was easy. Both of us were impressed by this park, and we only explored a relatively small portion of the available hiking trails. In addition to some trails in other parts of the park, you have several options to explore the section which includes the 2,000-year old earth-covered stone walls – you can stay fairly level up along the top, or take alternate routes down to the river. As we walked along the trail, we heard falling water – the drop off the edge of Tennessee’s highland rim into the central basin forms several very nice waterfalls on both the Big Duck and Little Duck Rivers, just before they converge within the park to form the Duck River.
Big Falls on Big Duck River, Old Stone Fort State Archeological Park. This was the site of a large mill in the 19th century.