Fentress County Visit

Dana Koogler and Sharon McGee

Friday April 12 thru Mon. April 15, 2024

Pictures are Here Big Sunk Cane

I had not told everyone during the time it was taking place, but this past month has been a tough one.

Kenny was working out of town for a period of four to six weeks. It was down at the Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant. It is just far enough away to be problematic. The drive is an hour and fifteen minutes. He took the camper down and stayed at an RV park as close as he could get to the project.

I could not go with him and just stay for a variety of reasons. One of which was the need to help provide childcare for grandkids a couple days each week. Someone still needs to be home to pay bills and hold down the fort. I had medical equipment being shipped that had to be brought indoors to prevent theft or damage. I had medical appointments for oral surgery and dental work. I had appointments to get Pre-operative things taken care of prior to my knee surgery coming up.

I went down each week and stayed with him as much as I could. Not being able to get out and do my usual level of hiking had me limited in what there was to do in the vicinity. It was a rough patch to say the least. This is my life. I have been the Lone Ranger off and on for many, many years.

I don't put things like this out on social media or the internet as an advertisement that I'm alone or the house is empty. That is just asking for trouble. I soldiered on and so did Kenny. The day of my preop lab work and to be seen by the anesthesiologist was rough. All at once what was coming up on me was too real. It upset me A LOT. All my original plans to go to Fentress County and see Sharon suddenly didn't seem like a good idea. All I wanted was to get in the jeep, drive to Spring City and be with Kenny and stay. I was very emotional. I had to calm down and apply some reason to the situation at hand. If I did cancel my trip plans I'd be sitting down there at the camper for 12 hours a day by myself. It wouldn't be fun or comforting except in the evenings when Kenny got home.

Finally I thought better of this notion and stuck with my original plans. I went to see Sharon and stayed the weekend. It was fun and got me out of the bad neighborhood of my own mind!

Sharon knows me very, very well and can sense when I'm going down that rabbit hole. She will say something to remind me to get my head in a better place. True friendship. This is it!

Friday evening she had a delicious meal prepared. It was so good to see her and get a hug!

Me, her, and Odie went on a ride after dinner. We were just out putzing around on a mild evening.

We saw some pretty views of the mountains with alpen glow. We saw slopes covered with trilliums.

We happened upon a bad place in the trail where we had to stop and check things out before proceeding. While out walking around looking at wildflowers and the scenery we chanced upon a large trove of morel mushrooms! It was like something from a very good dream come true! We left there with what amounted to a Wal-Mart shopping bag full of mushrooms! We took them home and cleaned them up in preparation to eat the next day.

Above and below: the area we were in has some residential buildings and barns. Alpen glow comes to the mountains in the distance as the sun sinks.

Below: yellow trillium on Skinner Mountain

Below: Foam flower on Skinner Mtn

Below: the bloom of Appalachian Bug Bane which is "Dolls Eyes" in August & September.

Below: perfect bloom of Great White flowered trillium on Skinner Mtn.

Below: Showy orchis-- native orchid species at Skinner Mtn.

Above: rough trail

Below: two views of the mushrooms back at the house.

We wrapped our evening up with icecream and good conversation. It was peaceful and I was happy I'd come despite my earlier anxieties. We planned to go to Big Sunk Cane the next day which is over near Hanging Limb.

Saturday

We got packed up and going Saturday morning after breakfast. We headed down the road to the newly reopened Cumberland Mountain General Store. The ongoing Hwy 127 road widening project had them talking about moving. Then they decided to stay put and reopen under new management. The Rockabilly Cafe is no more, but they are working on reopening the restaurant under a more contemporary theme. The updates are nice and the store looks great! The farmers market is going to be held there from now on. I'm just tickled they aren't closing up for good!

Above: I got the best smelling candle... Butt Naked! Funny name. Fantastic smell. Not dirty butt smell, but tropical smelling.

Above : decoration and items for sale at the newly reopened store.

Above: Front counter of the Cumberland Mountain General Store.

Above: pretty wall art in the store of a blackbird and quilt squares.

We enjoyed our visit to Cumberland Mountain General store, but mosied on toward the rest of our day's adventures. Sharon stopped in Hanging Limb for us to go in a new to me store. It is a handy convenience store that has restrooms, fuel, food, drinks, etc. I don't recall the name of it. It was real nice.

We hoped my memory would serve to get us to Big Sunk Cane. We took one brief wrong turn, but righted ourselves and quickly found we were pulling up to the parking spot for a hike to the falls. My primary reason for making this repeat hike was that my video footage on YouTube was corrupted. It was rotated by me, but YouTube took it upon themselves to rotate it back to "Revert to Original" which had ruined it. I was still having to do shorter, simpler hikes at this point so that was another reason for the choice. The hike is not hard and there is a lot to see. Waterfalls, creeks, forests, wildflowers.

Out in the plateau one of the things that I've found around Overton and Fentress Counties... of the Upper Cumberlands.... they call sink hole depressions "Canes". I am guessing from the fact in the past these probably held large stands of native cane. Big Sunk Cane is a sinkhole with a waterfall at the back of it. Actually there are two. Sourwood Shower AND Big Sunk Cane Falls. We did not bother with Sourwood Shower today. There is no trail and while the falls would have had water on it, it wasn't much flow. We skipped it today.

We parked where we weren't technically supposed to because the usual spot was so badly damaged we didn't think it would go well with Sharon's SUV. Good way to get stuck a long way from help!

We parked at a pull off up the road and walked back to the other spot. We walked straight back the cane which is like a grass meadow. Near the start of the hike was a cattle pen. A buzzard was on the ground near it standing on his head and rolling around the ground. He was injured some kinda way, but not sure what was wrong.

The ground is grassy, soft in places and spongy. We just took our time and picked the path that was best and least muddy. We spied a large patch of wildflowers near the edge of the forest and headed toward them. I wanted to take some photos. We stood wandering among deep purple dwarf larkspur, wild geranium, daisy fleabane, and purple phlox. The forest was starting to green up a little. New leaf buds everywhere. The next thing I knew Sharon exclaimed "Look Dana!" and there around our feet were morel mushrooms! We had to be very careful because they were thick! We saw mushrooms the size of 16 oz soda bottles! It was a dream come true two days in a row! Another Win!

We picked us another nice bag of mushrooms! It was so fun! We ended up with so many I was able to take some home and fry them up for my son and daughter in law and Kenny. Jared was tickled to get to have them as it was years since he'd eaten any. I had eaten them enough at Sharon's I abstained and let the rest of the family enjoy them. They are delicious, but they are rich!

Below are photos of some of our finds! Morels come in white and black. We mostly found white ones!

Above: Look at the size of these things Sharon is holding!

above: Field at Big Sunk Cane Hollow with bison.

Below: purple phlox

Below: Sharon walks ahead of me toward the start of our hike to the falls.

Above: dwarf crested iris

Below: dwarf larkspur

Below: star chickweed

Above: pair of prairie trilliums

Above: buzzard rolling around in the dirt sick or injured

Above: looking down the barrel of the cane

Above: more perfect bloom of prairie trillium

Once we got our mushroom frenzy over with we continued toward the back of the sinkhole.

We re-entered the forest and began seeing the creek and loads of wildflowers. It is a sea of trilliums and other beautiful Spring ephemerals.

Below: beech tree trunk

Below: tall trees soar into a blue sky

Above: the stream

Above: our hiking path was very smooth in most places

Above: blue cohosh blooms

Below: southern red trillium

Above: mayapples little green umbrellas and purple phlox

Below: Odie sees something in the woods

Below: Dogwood blooms

Below: The creek we had to ford to continue.. an easy rock hop today. Yet this is the stream that flows out of the hollow where Sourwood Shower is found. It was not enough flow to entice me to venture back there today in the shape my knees are in.

Above: a look up the stream in the direction of Sourwood Shower

Above: closer look at the rainbow in a vertical orientation shot.

Above: our first glimpse of Big Sunk Cane Falls... and look! A rainbow!

Below: The forest floor in this area was carpeted in white and pink trilliums

Below: close up of a couple white and one pink trillium

Above: very vibrant rainbow in the falls at Big Sunk Cane

Above: a sea of trilliums aged to pink and past peak bloom. Still colorful and pretty!

We took us a picnic lunch to the woods today and it was good! Everything tastes better out on a hike in the sunshine. The weather was perfect today. The wildflowers and scenery were like something out of a fairy tale. It is hard to leave such a place. We lingered just enjoying the beauty of the area. Finally we were ready to head back. The hike out was simple and easy. I was still glad to get back to the car at the end.

Below is a video of Big Sunk Cane Falls with its bright rainbow.

That evening back at the cabin we had another nice meal with fried mushrooms as part of dinner!

Afterwards we decided since it wasn't too late we'd ride over to Glenobey Spring and prowl around a little. We took Odie and hit the highway. Glenobey Road is now open all the way through after that landslide closed it. We went in the twilight out to see the pretty spring. It was flowing far to hard today to risk the culvert crawl. The usually dry stream bed at Alex Stephens Road was flowing today! All the way out of the Buffalo Cove to the East Fork River.

Purple phacelia bloomed near the culvert at the spring. It was pretty, but not as pretty as during late Summer when it is more colorful. The higher water levels make it hard to hunt fossils.

Below: The stream leading from the spring at Glenobey to the East Fork River

Above: Virginia bluebells grew in the sandy loam near the river

Below: Foam flowers bloomed near the spring

Above: grapevine at the spring big around as my arm

Above: some form of white violet near the spring stream

Above: Stream flowing beneath the bridge at Alex Stephens Road

Above: Odie crossing the bridge over the creek on Alex Stephens Road

above: golden ragwort was abundant near the river

Above: East Fork Obey river confluence with the spring stream at the dimming of the day. Water levels were a lot higher in this creek today as well as the river.

Above: Hard to believe we crawled through that culvert in August to get to the spring on the far side! Purple phacelia is growing atop the culvert.

Below is a photo of the stream coming out of Buffalo Cove just above the bridge. Lots of purple phacelia.

Below is a video of Glenobey Spring

Sunday

Today we planned to go to Gainesboro to have Sunday brunch at The Stolen Coin. This is a very nice restaurant Sharon has told me about on several occasions. Odie could not come inside, but they put a table outside the door for us and fixed him a bowl of water! Gainesboro is a quaint small town in the Upper Cumberland. It is very appealing.

Below are a few shots of the town and the front of The Stolen Coin. Click the link to their website!

Brunch was fabulous! The owners of the establishment were there and I got to meet them both today.

Next we drove onward to Standing Stone State Park. I have to say that while our visit today was pretty and the weather ideal.... the bloom here was disappointing. Most flowers were finished and passed peak. This is a place to go early in the bloom season. I've never arrived too early, but I have arrived past peak and it isn't something I want to do again. Once you know what peak bloom is like you hate to miss it. Also today the waterfalls were not flowing all around the way they usually are. Morgan Cascade and Grave flower Cascade were flowing. The remainder of the side hollows were just damp rocks instead of gushing waterfalls.

We stopped by the dam and playground. We drove all the way out to private property at the margin of the park. We saw some shooting stars in bloom. It was an absolute bluebird day!

Above and below: southern red trillium in bloom at Standing Stone

Above: close up view of purple phacelia which was in bloom at the state park in abundance.

Below: a view across a pretty green meadow at Standing Stone State Park. Love the pale green leaves and pink redbud blooms. You can also see red maple blooms.

Below: Shooting stars at Standing Stone

Below: fire pinks on the same slope at the state park

Below: a stop by the dam on Bryan Fork.

Below: wild geranium blooms

above: Bryan Fork looking upstream above the dam. This is the direction of Bryan Fork Falls which was did not attempt today.

Below: a slope of trillium blooms past peak at Standing Stone.

Above and below: the dam at the old reservoir of the state park at Standing Stone

Below is a video of the highlights of our visit to Standing Stone State Park today.

We spent time after Standing Stone State Park trying to make our way to Waterloo Falls. We ended up driving in endless circles so we finally tired of it moved on to other things. We went instead to Hardy-Reagan Falls on Roaring River. It was a popular spot today with lots of folks.

I had been to it numerous times, but I'm not sure Sharon ever had. It was quite pretty today.

below: Hardy-Reagan Falls photo taken with the Go Pro

Above: closer shot of Hardy Reagan Falls taken with my Canon camera.

Below: A view of the pea green leaves of Spring against that blue, blue sky. This is looking up at the craggy bluffs around the falls on Roaring River.

Below is a video of Hardy-Reagan Falls aka Roaring River Falls

Monday

I originally planned to spend Monday night and head home on Tuesday, but I had a temporary crown come off while at Sharon's. I tried unsuccessfully to put it back in place with temp dent, poly grip and other OTC methods. Sharon had a good idea. We'd call her dentist Monday morning early.

Sharon did call her dentist , but unfortunately they were booked up and had no time to deal with my problem. Called another clinic. No luck. Called my own dentist. They could see me at 3 pm. So I ended up heading home on Monday morning. I stopped in Lenoir City on the way home to shop. Purchasing new pajamas. New Summer outfits.

Got my permanent crown glued in place Monday evening! It was Providential! It is important to get dental work completed BEFORE joint replacement surgery whenever possible. That was one less thing to worry about. The only thing I have remaining to do dental wise is to have the permanent tooth screwed into my mouth where the implant post is. That can get taken care of in late July and I will be DONE! I hated to leave, but it worked out like it was supposed to. I had the prospect of Sharon coming over in a week for a visit that helped soften the blow of leaving a day early.

All in all it was a great weekend with the best company! Sharon has been my friend for so many years now. We've seen each other through a few things. I am blessed to have her in my life. We have the best time!

Lastly below is a video of a tranquil spot along Bryan Fork Creek at Standing Stone State Park.

Extra Pages

Sunday, June 9, 2024