Mancester, Tennessee - Burgess Falls

We wanted to do a little site seeing around Manchester, Tennessee, but my parents still had missionary responsibilities, so we ended up going on a couple of outings without them.  

Our first adventure was near Sparta, Tennessee, about an hour from Manchester. 

We went to Burgess Falls State Park.  There was a trail that took us by 4 different waterfalls.  

Throughout the "Cascades" waterfall, the water drops around 20 feet.  We thought this area on the Falling Water River was very pretty, tranquil even.  

"Upper Falls" is about a 30 foot drop.  The river doesn't look nearly so tranquil here.  And it looks cold, even though it was another warm and humid day. 

The trail was dense with trees.  A couple of them had been carved upon by people over the years.  

This was not one of the four waterfalls.  It was a bonus waterfall, I guess. 

This is "Middle Falls," where water falls for 80 feet before continuing it's journey downriver. 

The closest we came to it, was an overlook, high above the Falling Water River.  

Then the hike became more strenuous.  It was quite a descent, including a steep metal staircase that had been built on the trail, down to the last waterfall.

This side view of the falls was taken from the staircase.  

 "Lower Falls," from above.  Now, that's a waterfall!

 The water flowing over it's edge, plunges 136 feet!

The trail takes you all the way down,

to the base of the waterfall, until we were looking up at it from below.  

The kids were really enjoying the mist that came off of the waterfall.  

It was pretty damp down there...

and windy.  It felt great to cool off by the river, because we had the steep uphill to do now.   

By the end of the day, we were good and worn out.  Once again it was so nice to get back to my parents' house where we could have an enjoyable visit and feel the air conditioner.