Camping at Lock A, Cheatham Dam, This Past Week

 

I have a little photo album of my camping trip to Cheatham Dam Lock A Campground last Monday through Thursday. Well, to clarify...

I had reserved Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights at my bestest favorite campsite up at "Cheatham Lake," really just a wide spot in the mighty Cumberland River. From  HISTORIC CHEATHAM COUNTY TOUR SITES:

               ASSEMBLED AND WRITTEN BY
                     J. M. ALLEN
                        Corresponding Secretary CCHGA
                     FOR THE CHEATHAM COUNTY HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL ASSOCIATION

LOCK "A" & FOX'S BLUFF

CCHGA 3

    Located at the end of Cheatham Dam Road off Highway 12 North in Cheatham County. The Lock was completed and placed in operation November 26, 1904 at a cost of $490, 010 .77. It was 52 feet wide and 280 feet long. lt was erected to control the waters of Harpeth Shoals, a fivemile stretch of the Cumberland River between Ashland City and Clarksvillle which interrupted more steamboat business than all other natural impediments along the navigable course of the river.

    On November 19, 1906 Captain W. T. Hunter became the first Captain on the Cumberland todeliberately "Jump" a Dam with a Steamboat. He accomplished this feat at Lock "A" on the "H. W. Buttorff", while the water was at high level.

    The peak of the cliff overlooking Lock "A" is Fox's Bluff with one of the most scenic and picturesque views of the Cumberland Valley anywhere in the area. It used to be one of the local points of interest for visitors to the area but is now inaccessible due to the area being part of the Camp Grounds at the Cheatham Dam Recreation Area ..

NOTE: SEE: "Steamboating on the Cumberland" by Byrd Douglas

The whole story of the building of the site and the Army Corps of Engineers campsite there is an engaging one, and I recommend more research, and a visit if you are anywhere in striking distance. One of my favorite features is the grove of pecan trees that lines the river, lacing through the campsites and yielding delicious nuts every year, that is if you can time your harvest to beat the squirrels to them.

Anyway, long story short, I got to the campsite in a light drizzle and set up my tent and other gear, spent one rainy night and awoke into a chilly but lovely day riverside. I wanted to hike on Tuesday but the Cumberland River Memorial trail is closed, small bridges and who knows what else having been eradicated by recent heavy rains. So I spent Tuesday chilling in my chair and hammock, for which I had just purchased  a nice, heavy but portable stand, and fishing. Reading and playing mandolin. It was a very lovely relaxing day. Toward the end of the day I checked my Ventusky weather app and was convinced that it was going to start raining at dark and essentially not stop, with at times downpours, for the next three days. I made the difficult decision to pack it up. 

I did that, then I added all my remaining local firewood to the campfire and sat in my camp chair playing mandolin and enjoying the fall light on the Cumberland until the drizzle started to increase in intensity, threw my chair into the car, and headed home. I'm glad I did, since Ventusky had done me a solid. I enjoyed the next couple days as my usual ones, relaxing and painting in our lovely home in The Nations neighborhood of my birth city. 

Here's the few pics I took. One of them yielded a painting subject, and a piece to paraphrase Philip Levine, a long ago mentor at his teaching residency at Vanderbilt, to celebrate the exquisite in the mundane. That will be at my scottmerrick.me site when it is finished, but the photo is in the album. Look for the stone on the ground with a mossy bowl inhabited by a tiny, perfect, plant. Here, click the photo for the album, silly:

water, a jigsaw puzzle from the nations nashville neighborhood

 The Nations Nashville "water"

Just found a neat way to indulge a strange habit of mine! I walk my dog every day and we love to see patterns in our neighborhood. It can take dozens of finds to compile a single montage of a theme, and the first one I've compiled features what I believe the next world war will be fought over. I worked hard on it and sent one to Shutterstock for printing, but the iPhone resolution can't be made high enough to do the montage pixel justice. Just today, I found Jigsaw Planet; and here's the first installment , the pics compiled in Powerpoint and saved as a .jpg. More to come on this blog. I remain in search of a platform that doesn't require that I yield rights to my work, but it's really just a fun hobby at the moment and I'm not really concerned with that at the mo'. I also think that those folks deserve whatever they can earn for creating such a fun and easy to use content creation platform!

Tip: Challenge yourself (or make it easier) by changing the number of pieces with the "Play As" function on the site!

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Montana Trip 2022

Final update with pics from July 9, 2022--Done!

So, I think I'll just let the images describe this leg of our summer Montana trip, 'k? Click on the image above to view our dynamic annotated album from July 3, 2022 to July 9 when we head on back home to Chez Merrique in Nashville. Click on the first pic and navigate through the photos with the arrows on the sides. This album will stop growing but remain as long as the Internet loves me (and you). Check back often as I'll be uploading and adding brief comments to most pics until the end of the trip. 

BTW, the alarm is armed and neighbors are watching at home, so don't even think about it. Cool.