travel – Honey it's Thursday

Camping season well underway in Clarksville, TN

By Sarah Hughes

Camping season is upon us. Here are some local campsites to consider near Clarksville, TN.

Details focus on sites with tent camping. They are in order of distance from City Hall in downtown Clarksville.

Image by Sarah Hughes. Trees in a lake at Piney Campground. All rights reserved.

Site comparison 1

Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN)

Address: 2914 Hwy 49W

Ashland City, TN 37015*

*Use coordinates to get directions

Latitude 36° 19′ 6.3480″ N

Longitude 87° 13′ 30.0792″ W

Phone: 615-792-4195

Website: https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/251574

Cost: $22

Type: Tent or RV

Activities: “The temperate climate here allows for a lengthy recreation season, including boating, canoeing, and fishing. There is a large playground for the children and horseshoe pits for the adults. A large pavilion will be great for big family get-togethers.”

Amenities: Water Hookup, Accessibility, Picnic Table, BBQ, Fire Pit, Lantern Pole, Full Hookup, Electricity Hookup, Grills/Fire Ring, etc.

Reservation only

Distance from Clarksville: 38 min

Notes: 30 min drive to Nashville, if arriving late it’s highly recommended to call the campground to notify the Park Attendant.

Image by Sarah Hughes. Trees and table at Piney Campground. All rights reserved.

Site comparison 2

Dixieland Campground

Address: 1620 Pembroke-Fairview Road

Pembroke, KY 42266

Phone: 270-498-3833, 270-305-3953

Website: http://dixielandcampground.com/

Cost: $20 tent, $50 RV hookup

Type: Tent or RV

Activities: “enjoy the outdoors”

“Nestled in the woods of Pembroke Kentucky, we are a family owned and operated farm, campsite and RV Park. Come and enjoy the outdoors and get away from your fast paced life.”

Amenities: Laundry

Reservation only with application process

Distance from Clarksville: 39 min

Notes: “We are a family owned and operated campsite and farm nestled in the woods of Pembroke Kentucky.” “Dogs must be pre-approved”

Image by Sarah Hughes. Trees and lake at Piney Campground. All rights reserved.

Site comparison 3

LBL Whispering Pines Campground & Cabins

Address: 2168 Donelson Pkwy, Dover, TN 37058

Phone: (931) 232-4570

Website: https://www.facebook.com/WhisperingPinesDoverTN

Cost: $50/ night for a small cabin

Type: Cabin and RV

Activities: Tanning, squirrel watching, “family fun”, “slowing down”, wildlife, nature

Reservations accepted

Distance from Clarksville: 42 min

Notes: Cabins have bedding provided, excellent concierge recommendations, funny facebook page, not lakefront

Image by Sarah Hughes. Geese at Piney Campground. All rights reserved.

Site comparison 4

Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, Piney Campground (Virginia Loop pictured)

Address: 621 Fort Henry Rd, Dover, TN 37058

Phone: 931-232-5331

Website: https://www.landbetweenthelakes.us/seendo/camping/piney-campground/

Cost: $16/ night plus a $6 reservation fee

Type: Tent, RV or Cabin

Activities: “swimming beach area, archery range, ball field, bike trails, a campfire theater, hiking trails, two boat ramps, and a fishing pier”

Amenities: “The newly renovated Piney Outpost provides campers a place to purchase food and drinks, ice, firewood, tick repellent, limited camping supplies, and other perishable goods. Soft drink machines are located behind the gatehouse and some shower buildings. Washers and dryers are available at Areas B, C, and D shower buildings.”

Walk in and Reservations accepted

Distance from Clarksville: 54 min

Notes: “Piney Campground is now open year-round and offers 384 well-defined lakefront and wooded sites with 283 electrical hookups, 44 sites with electric, water, and sewer, and 57 primitive sites. Most sites are capable of handling large motorhomes and campers. Campers have access to modern facilities, including a swimming beach area, archery range, ball field, bike trails, a campfire theater, hiking trails, two boat ramps, and a fishing pier. Piney also has 19 primitive cabins available for nightly rental. In addition, the summer season offers weekend recreation programs for all ages. Since 1973, in mid-September Piney holds its popular Camper’s Fair with a variety of activities including a campers’ flea market and dealer showcase of new RVs, fifth wheels, and motorhomes. It is open to the public during the weekend.”

Image by Sarah Hughes. Bug friend at Piney Campground. All rights reserved.

Site comparison 5

Paris Landing/ Kentucky Lane KOA Holiday

Address: 6290 East Antioch Road

Buchanan, TN 38222

Phone: 731-642-6895

Website: https://koa.com/campgrounds/paris-landing/

Cost: Tent $30.99/night for Sat. Aug 28, 2021

Type:Tent, RV, cabins

Activities: Pool and pool lift, Cable tv, mini golf, bike rentals, WiFi, playground gym, climate-controlled bathhouse, giant connect four game, Lego wall,Disc golf, kids arts and crafts table, ping pong

Amenities: Snack bar, firewood, laundry, wheelchair accessible, store

Reservations accepted

Distance from Clarksville: 56 min

Notes: KOA, Open March 1 to November 30

The pastime of camping is a good way to get to know the landscape and reconnect to nature. Camping is something to do and provides its own entertainment such as hiking, swimming and barbecuing. It’s a great activity for friends and family. Philosophically, it can be used to reconnect to the simple life and find inner peace. It can help revive circadian rhythms by putting you out under the stars and sunrises, according to intuition and a study done in Feb. 2017 and published in Current Biology.

“These studies suggest that our internal clock responds strongly and quite rapidly to the natural light-dark cycle,” said lead author and CU Boulder integrative physiology professor Kenneth Wright. “Living in our modern environments can significantly delay our circadian timing, and late circadian timing is associated with many health consequences. But as little as a weekend camping trip can reset it.”

“Weekend exposure to natural light was sufficient to achieve 69 percent of the shift in circadian timing we previously reported after a week’s exposure to natural light,” Wright said.

Most people go camping when the weather is nice. It’s important to pack gear to shelter and protect from weather, as bad weather can be fatal. Many campgrounds are only open seasonally, with open months listed online or by phone. In general, camping season tends to be Apr. or May to Sept. or Oct. Many campers wait for weather patterns to solidify.

“If you’re planning a camping trip, a good rule is to wait until May for the weather to work itself out” says Bottles and Banter’s section on Family RVing and Travel (see more at https://www.bottlesandbanter.com/2021/02/13/when-does-camping-season-start-best-month-camping/).

Image by Sarah Hughes. Rained out tent at Piney Campground. All rights reserved.

Since quarantine has limited travel and entertainment options this year, understandably camping in the USA has increased as an activity. A study by Kampgrounds of America predicts camping interest will remain high in 2021.

According to PR Newswire’s article on the study, Fresh Data Indicates Camping Interest To Remain High In 2021, “More than 60% of these first-time campers plan to camp the same or more in the coming year; across all campers, families are the group most likely to spend more nights camping in 2021.”

“Camping had been steadily growing in popularity prior to the pandemic, but experienced aggressive growth across the U.S. last year,” said PR Newswire, “The 2021 North American Camping Report, which surveyed U.S. and Canadian campers’ sentiments and behaviors on the outdoor recreation in January 2021, shows that more than 86 million U.S. households consider themselves campers and 48 million of those households took at least one camping trip in 2020 – up more than 6 million over 2019.” (see more at https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fresh-data-indicates-camping-interest-to-remain-high-in-2021-301273611.html).

Be aware of fees and facilities offered at your campsite of choice. Some locations are illegal to camp in or have specific regulations. Most require reservations, and some permits for specific activities. Some have websites or a phone number for reservations. Be sure to get the proper equipment. Leave no trace.

A Cheekwood Spring and Arbor Day Walk

By Sarah Hughes

As temperatures rise and blossoms cycle through their hues, it would appear Tenn. has entered the Spring season. One way to enjoy it is to visit the Cheekwood Estate and Gardens.

Located at 1200 Forrest Park Drive in Nashville, Tenn. Cheekwood draws residents, members and travelers alike. With 55-acres of botanical gardens there is plenty of space for social distancing in accordance with safety protocols listed in their entirety on Cheekwood’s website.

“Cheekwood, in accordance with CDC guidance, recommends individuals stay 6′ apart and travel in groups no larger than 10. All visitors are required to wear cloth face coverings when entering buildings including the Historic Mansion & Museum, Botanic Hall, and the Frist Learning Center. Cloth face coverings are strongly recommended in outdoor areas except when maintaining a physical distance of at least 6’ from other visitors,” says https://cheekwood.org/knowbeforeyougo_covid19/

Cheekwood features year round activities. Arbor Day, on Apr. 30, 2021 can be celebrated with a walk and an arboretum map available online and from Visitor services.

“The Arboretum at Cheekwood includes well over 2,100 trees, curated to serve Cheekwood’s mission as a collecting institution and offer the community enjoyment and education. Cheekwood has documented 1,267 deciduous trees; 576 evergreens; 16 deciduous conifers; and 238 dogwoods,” says https://cheekwood.org/calendar/arbor-day/

“Our arboretum map, available online and from Visitor Services, presents at least 120 distinct species and cultivated varieties of trees to guide an exploration of the campus canopy.”

Their website blog even has tips for caring for Dogwood Trees, available at https://cheekwood.org/dogwood-tips/

Although Bloom Season for Cheekwood is officially Mar. 6 – Apr. 11, 2021 and National Gardening Day Apr. 14, 2021 there is still a great deal to see at Cheekwood in the lushness of warm months. The grounds are an excellent inspiration for the hobby gardener featuring different gardens every month. Summertime also promises seasonal festivities and beautiful scenes.

Tickets have the option to be purchased for just the grounds or to include the art museum located in the mansion of the historic Cheek estate. The building houses historically furnished rooms, paintings and permanent collection pieces.

“Originally built as the home of Leslie and Mabel Cheek in 1929, Cheekwood is one of the finest examples of an American Country Place Era estate,” says the Cheekwood website.

If planning a visit, it is best to reserve a time. Ticket and membership options are available through the museums website at https://cheekwood.org/buy-tickets/

Letter from the Editor – February 2018

Dear Honey Readers,

After some googling and soul-searching, I decided to disable commenting on this blog. This decision has to do with a few thoughts I’ve had. One is I would rather focus on my craft of writing and learning small-time website design, than devote my limited time to sorting and approving comments. The next is most of the comments I received tended to be advertisements/bots/possibly shady snippets of software code, and not people wanting to have a real conversation or build some type of community. I was starting to worry a little too much about the shady category. I still am. Perhaps as I get better at this, I will start to add comments back in and talk about how to prevent code-insertion or identity issues in blogs.

However, there have been some impressive commentators who have graced this site with a quick line. Notably, a Donald Trump, who I’m pretty sure wasn’t that one, and a website for something to do with boobsigns, whatever that is (please, for your computers safety, don’t google it, I won’t be liable for whatever horror or virus results). I’m sorry to say I removed the temptation of cluttering up the comments with perplexing snippets of dubious sincerity. Though there were some comments where people didn’t seem to have a suggestion, and were just commenting to comment without saying very much. Some of these also made me wonder if those people had read my article, because the comment often seemed to not correspond to any of my content. I did sort of enjoy deleting those comments, along with what I’ll call ad-comments or mal-comments (based on adware and malware). However, I immensely appreciated all of the positive feedback and questions I received. Some of you seemed inspiringly interested in blogging. To those people, I am sorry to have cut the conversation short. I value criticism and have been especially learning to embrace it this year. I hope that the time I invest into helps to create articles and creative writing that makes up for my decision.

My problem of time limitations is partially to do with changes I’m making to do this better in the future. I’m currently taking a CSS, HTML, and XHTML class. It has been in addition to learning Javascript at home and at work, the latter of which I’ve also been spending more time at. I think I might be crazy, as it’s shapin up to be a pretty tight schedule, but somehow I know I can do it. I’ve definitely been enjoying happiness in a sort of flow state of all I’m working on.

Since you last heard from me, it’s been a pretty weird year. In May 2017, I had some health problems that took till November to resolve, and could have been cancer. Luckily, I do not have cancer, and all is back to normal in terms of body things. Yay! (Fuck cancer). Those months weren’t all bad, although other people close to me have also been sick with illnesses of their own. I went on some epic adventures and absorbed a bunch of art scenes. I’ve been getting back to performing on stage for bellydance and other styles. I’ve been doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu since January 2017. It has been amazing! It’s a lot more mental than I thought, as well as having a great community and being a great work out. It has made me more energetic and helped my dance considerably. In August 2017, I performed at a community festival, and another performance is in the works for February. In October, I left the North American continent for the first time to see Germany, Prague, and Italy. That was also my first real vacation since I started work at my current company. It was amazing! I’ve also been crafting somewhat regularly, but have mostly favored small projects. By August 2018, I hope to get to bigger, more involved projects like a French Court dress complete with panniers. Also, I’ve been pretty into film, catching up on a lot of American Film Institute favored movies, and cult pieces of the 1980s and 90s. I’ve seen a few friends quite a bit, and have enjoyed getting closer to them.

I hope to keep writing, and inspire you. If you would like to be a part of Honey It’s Thursday, feel free to comment your interest! I’ll be leaving the comments on here so you can contact me.

Thank you for reading,

Honey