Travelling Photographer

Early start on the 28th and headed to Bristol which is on the border on Tenn. and Virginia. We tried to see a specific park and trail for some exercise and found that our GPS was useless in this area. So we wandered along the border between states and found the cities train station which caught my eye. Moving through Tennessee we stopped at Cumberland Gap and drove the auto route to the gaps top overlooking the valley.

The gap is where the  borders of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia converge, a path to new worlds appears. Early native Americans traveled through it along a game trail, before English-speaking settlers, including Daniel Boone, came through in the 1700s to carve out what became known as Wilderness Road. According to many accounts, between 200,000 and 300,000 settlers came through the Gap into Kentucky and beyond from 1775 to 1810.

Moving on we stopped at Cumberland Falls SP – for some much need exercise after driving the twisting and turning RT 90 along the mountains ridge line. Known as the “Niagara of the South,” the 125-foot wide curtain of water is dramatic day or night. But it’s only at night during a full moon that you can see the moonbow.  The “moonbow,” also called a white rainbow or lunar rainbow, is formed just like a rainbow—light is refracted in tiny water droplets—and appears for the two or so days, as long as the sky is clear, on either end of the full moon. 

Pushing on we enjoyed the back road scenery of Tennessee then for the next two days we cruised through Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Bristol Va.

Cumberland Gap and Cumberland Falls SP

Back Roads Tennessee