Montgomery Bell State Park

We recently spent a lovely vacation at Montgomery Bell State Park, just north of I-40, about 45 minutes west of Nashville. We stayed in the Inn, where all the rooms have balconies overlooking a lake. Here's the view from our balcony:

This is the view from the walkway outside the 4th floor restaurant:

There are 2 swimming pools, 1 indoor and 1 outdoor, but we didn't use them:

This is the site of the founding of the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination, and there's a church shrine:

and a log cabin:

The log cabin is a replica of the home of one of the founders where the 3 men gathered to pray over their decision.

Walking the trails was great fun. There were a couple of trails I didn't try. The 10 mile trail was just more than I wanted to try (though I did walk along a mile or so of it just to see if it differed much from the others), and another was a out-and-back trail I wasn't interested in. The little Jim Bailey nature trail began by the park visitor center:

All 3 of us walked this 3/4-1 mile loop trail:

There was a longer trail (the Wildcat trail) that joined another trail (the Ore Pit Loop), and I spent 2 1/2 hours exploring those (and part of the 10-mile trail for good measure). I was on my own for this excursion:

see the deer in the picture below?

There were a lot of deer, and they had no fear at all of the cars.

I did get carried away taking pictures of the trails.

The Ore Pit Loop began here:

And tucked up along a spur off the trail was this one solitary gravesite:

I'll post photos of the Spillway Trail in a separate post later today.