Visiting West Tennessee

For the past two weeks, we have been staying at our second Thousand Trails campground, Cherokee Landing, located in West Tennessee. From the Thousand Trails website, I thought the campground was a bit closer to Memphis than it actually is but that has worked out fine for us. When I initially booked, I was planning a visit to Graceland and a few other Memphis landmarks. Since Covid 19 is still happening and case numbers were up a little in Tennessee, we weren’t sure about visiting a popular tourist site.

As we traveled to Cherokee Landing, we realized that this campground is really located in the country more than an hour’s drive to Memphis. There is pretty countryside around us with rolling hills and many rivers and lakes. The campground itself is very wooded with large pine and oak trees and is spread out around a lake. It is a very pretty setting and surprisingly empty. The website says that there are over 300 sites here but even over the Labor Day weekend, there were less than 40 RVs in the park. We have neighbors on both sides due to being in the more popular full hook up section.

It appears that the campground is older and the sites are not too accessible for today’s larger RVs. Many of the sites are too small or not level enough for us to use. We lucked out getting a fairly large full hook up site, although it is only 30 Amp. The electric service seems to be the biggest issue here. The majority of the sites are 30 Amp and we heard that the power doesn’t work well at many of the sites. Some neighbors complained that their breakers tripped frequently. Luckily, we have not had that problem but with only 30 Amp, we can only run one air conditioner and it has been very hot and humid during our stay.

Lake view from the other side of the lake

Getting to over 10,000 steps is very easy at this campground. I walk each morning from our section over to the section on the other side of the lake and back which is around 6,000 steps. Then I take another walk in the evening to easily meet my step goal. I highly enjoy walking and enjoying the lake view and pine tree smell as the morning fog lifts. I saw deer every morning the first week but haven’t seen any during this past week. I am not sure why although there seem to be a couple of dogs loose and roaming the campground this week. They may be scaring the deer away.

I was planning to visit Graceland until I talked to some other campers who were from Memphis. They said that Memphis, like most cities, had ongoing protests. Although all of these protests were peaceful, they had many near Graceland and it was the only place that had experienced graffiti and some damage. Tim wasn’t interested in touring it right now and I decided that I didn’t want to go alone where I could risk getting into traffic and potential crowds due to the protests. The closest we went to Memphis was to a suburb for shopping and to go to the bank. It took us an hour to get there and I think we were still 15 miles from downtown.

On our way back from shopping, we found a roadside barbecue stand so we stopped and picked up lunch to take home with us. The pulled pork and barbecue sauce was absolutely delicious and we highly enjoyed it. I had been looking forward to Memphis barbecue and this definitely met my expectations. On another day, we stopped at another roadside barbecue place in Middleton, the little town near the campground. I think theirs was even better.

One afternoon, we drove to a nearby town to check out a civil war battlefield in the area. This is located a bit off the beaten path and is a little difficult to find. Even though it is run by the National Park Service, there wasn’t anyone else there; not even a ranger. It isn’t a very big park and was a nice little walk back a trail past a confederate cemetery to the river where the battle took place. We always enjoy learning about history in areas that we are visiting.

As we traveled around the local roads, we kept noticing Walking Tall signs. In case you don’t remember, there were a series of Walking Tall movies based on Sheriff Buford Pusser’s life made in the 1970’s. He was sheriff of McNairy county which is one county east of where we are staying. He made national news in his often violent battles against corruption, gambling, moonshiners, and prostitution by the State Line Mob which operated on the Tennessee/Mississippi state line. The signs we noticed were for a historical drive through the area where many of the scenes from the movies occurred, including where he was ambushed and his wife was killed. We visited the Buford Pusser Home and Museum one day which was very interesting. It is a small ranch home where he lived with his family and you can learn about his time as sheriff of McNairy county.

While we are traveling, I like to find places to hike and am up for hikes much more often than Tim is. I have avoided going alone, and I am not sure why. I think I am nervous being out by myself in areas that I don’t know. I never had this issue when we lived in Pittsburgh and I often walked there by myself. I guess it is the unknown that has held me back. I decided that I need to get over my fears and get out hiking. I did my first solo hike, about 3 miles round trip, at a nearby state park. I can’t believe how much I enjoyed being out in the woods on my own. It was invigorating and relaxing at the same time. My biggest concern is tripping on roots or rocks and twisting my ankle. I made sure to wear good hiking shoes and use a hiking stick. It was good I did as parts of the trail had loose rocks and many roots especially when going downhill. Once at the bottom, there was a raised boardwalk over a swamp before the trail headed back up hill through the woods to a fire tower. After that, the trail I was on joined with a horse trail that had even more loose rocks and went back down hill to a dam and lake. A great work out with terrific views! I really enjoyed my solo hike. I had planned to visit another state park but it has rained the past two days and there are many warnings of flooding in that area so I am going to pass this time. We head into Mississippi next so I may find a good hiking spot there to explore. Enjoy these pictures I took on my solo hike:

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