Tag Archives: Hiking

Narrows of the Harpeth

5 May

My wife came up with the idea to go hiking, and I thought it was an excellent suggestion. We have done a little hiking together before. The first time was the Alum’s Cave Bluff Trail in the Great Smokey Mountains. Another time was around a volcano in Costa Rica. Those were hikes while dating. This was our first hike as a married couple.

It was up to me to find a place close by, and I settled on the Narrows of the Harpeth Trail in Harpeth River State Park. It would be new territory for the both of us.

The park is just past Pegram, which is west of Nashville. That is opposite of us. I plugged in the GPS, who I fondly refer to as The Bitch, and headed west on Interstate 40. I have to give The Bitch credit. She took us to within a few hundred feet of the trailhead.

The Narrows is a rock outcropping that sits in a narrow bend of the Harpeth River. It is mostly used as a place for people to fish or begin a kayaking excursion. The bend is so narrow that the river almost comes back and runs into itself. Other people may fish or kayak. We were going to hike.

The first part of the trail is an incline that takes you to an overlook. From this perspective, you can see the surrounding landscape. Immediately in front of us was beautiful farmland.image-22

There was also a great view of the river below.image-23

After making our way back down, we walked to the other side of the bend and walked along the river bank.

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At the end of this trail, we found something historic, and everyone knows how I like to find something historic. To put simply, it was a tunnel with water shooting out of it.

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However, this was not just any tunnel. It is one of the oldest manmade tunnels in the United States. Montgomery Bell, a wealthy industrialist, used slave labor to dig a diversion tunnel as a power source for his ironworks, Pattison Forge.

Watching the water surge from the tunnel, I thought of several things.

There was once an industrial complex at this site, and, now, it is a nature trail. I wonder what Bell would think of his investment being totally gone. This tunnel is all that is left.

Also, people have a misconception of the life of slaves in the antebellum South. They think of people working in a cotton or a tobacco field. However, slaves were forced to work in other economic areas, as well. I cannot imagine the hard work and suffering it took to dig a 290-foot tunnel through solid rock. These people were not forced to work in agriculture. This was big industry.

As we walked back, I thought about a story I once heard. Some former students were kayaking in an inebriated state and went into a forbidden tunnel. I heard the story of their terrifying ride through darkness without knowing where they were headed. Suddenly, the water fell away and only air was underneath them. Suddenly, it hit me that this was the tunnel.

We decided that on our return trip we would kayak instead of hike. However, I am not going to make my way into the tunnel. I believe the best view of the tunnel is from the outside. The slaves who built it and the students who ventured into it would probably agree with me.

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What Happens When a Settler Says, “Look At All Those Cedar Trees.”

24 Aug

A few days ago, our school, the School of Humanities, Education and the Arts, held a retreat at Cedars of Lebanon State Park, located a few miles south of town. As we sat in the assembly hall and talked about the upcoming academic year, my mind kept wandering toward our surroundings and the times I have spent in the park.

On one side of the hall, there is a playground and some picnic tables. That’s where we had a picnic for my grandfather a few weeks before he passed away. He had a brain tumor, and everyone knew his time was short. Picnics were one of his favorite things, so we had one while he was still able.

On the other side of the hall, there is a softball field in need of much repair. In the past, our university’s intramurals have been played there, but it was built for a different purpose. Years ago my dad sponsored a professional softball team, and he had the field built as a home park. Everything was donated, but some government agency refused to put up the lights. I noticed that there are now lights.

The Dixon Merritt Nature Center is located just past the field.Nature Center

Named for a local historian, the center presents the wildlife that can be found in the park. When I was a kid, we would take field trips to the nature center. I always wondered why a center dedicated to nature would have stuffed animals on display.

There is a short trail behind the nature center that I always thought was cool. It leads into a gully that contains a cave. I never got up the courage to go into the cave, but legend says that it ends underneath the town square. That’s probably not true, but it was the home of a whiskey making operation.

At the other end of the trail, there is a New Deal era recreation building that used to have a ping-pong table. On the other side of that is a playground with a great slide and a great swing set. When I was a kid, I would see how high the swings would go. Some kids jumped out of them. I always dragged my feet on the ground until it stopped.

In the same area, there are a bunch of picnic tables. These fill up the fastest because they are the first ones that people drive past. Unfortunately, my memories of this area aren’t positive. Sitting on one of the tables, a girlfriend and I had one of those discussions that always ends in a breakup.

If people drive past these tables, then they will find other things in the park. Like any good state park, there is a camping area. There are also some pretty cool trails. A swimming pool is located at the far end of the park. I think that I went there once as a kid. It’s a nice pool, but we had one at home.

There is also a frisbee golf course that a few of us played. That’s when I discovered that I am no better at frisbee golf than I am real golf.

Cedars of Lebanon is named for the grove of trees that it encompasses, and our town, Lebanon, is named for the same reason. When settlers first moved into the area, they saw all of the cedars and got all Biblical. You know, the Bible talks about the cedars of Lebanon, so that seemed like a good thing to name the town.Lebanon Flag

These days, Lebanon is known as the “Cedar City.” Although the park is officially named Cedars of Lebanon, most long-time Lebanese call it Cedar Forest. There are “cedar” things all over the place. There is even a Cedarstone Bank that combines the two things we have most of – cedars and rocks.

The rock part is accurate. You can’t dig anywhere around here without hitting them. However, the cedar part presents a problem. One day, I was talking to one of our biology professors who is an expert in plants, and he said something along the lines of:

You know all of the cedars around here. They aren’t cedars. They are junipers.

So, the settlers were wrong. There are no cedars to inspire the name of Lebanon. Now, the city with the wrong name uses a slogan that is just as wrong. The park that has been part of my life and the lives of many people in this area has the wrong name. We thought we were playing amongst the cedars when we were really should have been calling it Juniper Forest.

All I can say is welcome to “Juniper City.”

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