Monday, Sept 12
We took off from my sister’s house at 9 am and headed to a Corps of Engineers campground about 30 miles north of Nashville. When we left Knoxville, we left the Cumberland Mountains and traveled over the Cumberland Plateau to the Nashville Basin.
Lock A Campground
Lock A Campground is a Corps of Engineers campground on the north bank of the Cumberland River near Ashland City, TN, just upstream from Cheatham Lock and Dam. The slope down to the campground was very steep, with the elevation dropping about 300 feet in just over a quarter mile. Check-in was at 3 pm, but nobody was at the gate when we arrived, so we went straight to our campsite.
There were 45 sites, probably half right along the river. We had a very nice wide concrete pad that was flat and appeared to be brand new. We were probably 50 feet from the river and could easily see the barges when they went down the river. We were right next to the sites on either side, but there was a little grass between us.
Lock A Campground
Lock A Campground is a Corps of Engineers campground on the north bank of the Cumberland River near Ashland City, TN, just upstream from Cheatham Lock and Dam. The slope down to the campground was very steep, with the elevation dropping about 300 feet in just over a quarter mile. Check-in was at 3 pm, but nobody was at the gate when we arrived, so we went straight to our campsite.
There were 45 sites, probably half right along the river. We had a very nice wide concrete pad that was flat and appeared to be brand new. We were probably 50 feet from the river and could easily see the barges when they went down the river. We were right next to the sites on either side, but there was a little grass between us.
Golly G’s Ice Cream
Before we went back to the campground, we decided to try to find an ice cream place in Google and settled on Golly Gs in Pleasant View, TN. This was a nice outdoor area with a giant Jenga game on a picnic table, and we played with it while eating our ice cream.
Afterward, we returned to the campsite and were at the camper around 7 pm.
Tuesday, Sept 13
When I looked out the back window of the camper when I got up, I watched a barge going down the river.
Fort Campbell – Don F. Pratt Museum
We took off around 10 am and headed north to see Fort Campbell. Fort Campbell is a US Army installation located astride the Kentucky–Tennessee border between Hopkinsville, KY, and Clarksville, TN. Fort Campbell is home to the 101st Airborne Division and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
We drove directly to the Don F. Pratt Museum on the fort. The museum is the official museum of the 101st Airborne Division, and it covers the history of the “Screaming Eagles” from the early 1940s to the present day. There are also displays for other units assigned there and information about the development of vertical envelopment warfare from World War II to the present.
When we exited the museum, we walked across the street to an outdoor park that had displays of various military aircraft and equipment used by the division.
Pit Stop Drive Through Pink Elephant
When we left the Fort, we headed toward downtown Hopkinsville, but we had to visit the Pit Stop Drive Through Pink Elephant, which sits outside a liquor store.
According to Merriam-Webster, “Pink Elephants” is a plural noun that was first used in 1940 to mean “hallucinations arising especially from heavy drinking or use of narcotics.” One popular example was Dumbo’s champagne-fueled, psychedelic hallucination of Pink Elephants on Parade in Walt Disney’s 1941 classic animated film, Dumbo. So, we should often see pink elephants in liquor stores around the United States.
Pennyroyal Area Museum
We then headed into Hopkinsville to visit the small Pennyroyal Area Museum located on the first floor of the former 1914 Post Office. Unlike other county museums, this museum highlighted the quirky aspects of the county’s history.
We saw displays of alien sightings (or goblins), the invasion of blackbirds, masked men that terrorized the countryside (Black Patch Tobacco Wars), the Sleeping Prophet who guided by analyzing dreams (Edgar Cayce), and a major celestial event that transformed the town (2017 Point of Greatest Eclipse). There were some “normal” exhibits on regional plants, animals, and land: Native Americans, Trail of Tears, early settlers, legendary African American storytellers (Bell Hooks and Ted Poston), and Fort Campbell.
Since the museum was in an old post office, they provided you a postcard and a stamp that you could use to write yourself a note, and they would send it sometime in the future. That sounded a little weird, but we did it.
Jefferson Davis Monument State Historic Site
We then drove over to the Jefferson Davis Monument State Historic Site. With all the controversy about honoring anyone or anything related to the Confederate States in the US Civil War, this stop made us feel funny from the beginning.
The Jefferson Davis Monument State Historic Site is a Kentucky state park commemorating the birthplace of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, in Fairview, Kentucky. The park covers 19 acres and includes open and covered picnic areas and a playground. The site’s focal point is a 351-foot concrete obelisk.
When we went into the visitor center to buy our tickets, we caught a tour just leaving for the tower. A guide told us about the tower and then took us up the elevator to the observation floor.
The monument was built between 1917 and 1924 and is the tallest unreinforced concrete structure and the tallest concrete obelisk in the world. It was proposed during the 1907 reunion of the Orphan Brigade, a group of military units recruited from Kentucky to fight for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. The concrete walls are 8.5 feet thick at the base and taper to 2.5 feet thick at the top. At the top of the monument is an observation room with a window on each of the four walls. There wasn’t anything to look at. When we were ready to leave, she took us back down.
We then went back to the visitor center and walked through their small museum. We watch a short video describing Davis’ life and the monument’s construction there. They emphasized Davis’s contributions while serving in the military and the United States Senate and House of Representatives. I could find nothing negative about him. After the war, Jefferson Davis was a source of Southern pride and an advocate of The Lost Cause negationist mythology that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery.
We then went out to the parking lot and ate our lunch while looking at and talking about our discomfort with the monument.
Fort Donaldson National Battlefield
Early in the war, Union commanders realized that control of the major rivers would be the key to success in the Western Theater; after capturing Fort Henry on the Tennessee River on February 6, 1862, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant advanced 12 miles to the much larger Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. The battle took place on February 14-15, 1862. The Union Army had 24,000+ soldiers, and the Confederates had 16,000+. Though the Confederates defeated the Union ironclad ships on 14 February, they were surrounded and surrendered to General Grant on the morning of 16 February.
The unconditional Surrender of Fort Donelson created jubilation throughout the North and silence in Dixie. It was the North’s first major victory of the Civil War, opening the way into the very heart of the Confederacy. The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers and railroads in the area became vital Federal supply lines, and Nashville became a huge supply depot for the Union army in the West.
The 369 acres of the battle site have been preserved by the National Park Service as Fort Donelson National Battlefield. The entrance to the park is in Dover, Tennessee, though parts of the battlefield extend to Kentucky. The Visitor Center was closed for renovations, and their temporary center, which was located in a mobile home, was closed because it was after closing time. We drove around the battlefield and followed the audio tour through the park. Seeing the original trenches and fortifications while imagining the horrific battle here was interesting. Cannon was placed in some of them.
Near the entrance of the park was a large Confederate monument honoring the Confederate dead. Though the Union soldiers were buried at military cemeteries, the Confederate soldiers were buried in unmarked graves. This monument is meant to be a gravestone for all of them.
Tobacco Smoke Houses
We started back at the campsite around 3 pm, following the Cumberland River as much as possible. Along the way, we passed some Black Patch tobacco fields we learned about in Hopkinsville. When we drove through Cumberland City, we saw the Cumberland Fossil Plant, a pulverized coal-fired power station and Tennessee’s most powerful power station. As we approached Ashland City, we saw some smokehouses used to cure the Black Patch tobacco. They look like they are on fire.
Sunset
We got back to the campground around sunset, so we found a spot in the day-use area near the river where we set up our chairs and watched the sunset over the water.
We were back at the camper around 7 pm.
Wednesday, Sept 14
A heavy fog had settled over the area when we woke up the following day. We packed up and used the dump at the campground entrance around 10 am and then took off for Scott Air Force Base outside St Louis.