Desoto State Park – a little family adventure

This weekend we high tailed it out of Dodge and headed up to the north Alabama mountains.  I spent many summers on Lookout Mountain near Mentone, AL as a kid and I couldn’t wait to get back.  We rented a cabin at Desoto State Park and loaded the car full of jackets and long pants.  For a weekend filled with beautiful weather, great experiences, and awesome food, our only mistake was those jackets and pants!  The weather was clear and sunny and rarely below 70 degrees except for the beautiful, crisp, cool mornings.  

Our cabin was a treat and was plenty of room for our smallish family.  There was a deck along the back that overlooked a bit of a ravine with a fork from one of the nearby creeks.  We took the kids on an easy hike right out behind the cabin where they had the opportunity to pose for photos in their first of many rock overhangs.

Later that day we headed over to Desoto Falls where there were very minimal rails to keep my kids from hurling themselves over the edge.  Dave and I each had a death grip on one of the kids so there are zero photos to commemorate this experience!  After Desoto we hit the town up Mentone high atop Lookout Mountain and enjoyed a tasty lunch at The Wildflower Cafe.  The tomato pie was my favorite!  

After lunch we fumbled around on the roads a bit to see if we could locate the old camp where I helped out with the horses on occasion as a kid.  It’s still there!  I loved that place.  Now it is called Lookout Mountain Camp for Boys and I’m thinking Sid and Sol will need to go there in a few years.

Our next stop was straight up to the southside of Chatanooga, Tennessee to a place actually in Georgia – See Rock City.  The highlight of our trip!  I had to devote an entirely seperate post to this wonderful off shoot.

On day three we took our time before check-out and spent a few minutes with the tripod and camera trying to capture an elusive family photo.  It’s always fun to see what we come up with in between self-timer clicks!  

We then headed on to our last set of falls over on Little River and then followed the road along the edge of Little River Canyon.  Dave took it upon himself to carry both boys over to a rock outcropping next to the falls for a little photo opp!  Now that he has seen the rock in the photos he’s questioning that decision!  A little more driving, a last minute decision to make a scenic detour and the next thing you know we are at Horse Pens 40 where a bouldering competition is going on.  Horse Pens 40 is a boulderer’s paradise.  Even Solomon loved clamboring up and down the easier rocks.  The place apparently got it’s name from the natural enclosure made by the boulders and rocks that allowed the native american’s of the area to enclose their horses.  I would love to go back and explore this place more.  It was a bit crowded on the day of our visit and there weren’t many toddler’s running or screaming around so we kept it short.

A little more driving, a last minute decision to make a scenic detour and the next thing you know we are at Horse Pens 40 where a bouldering competition is going on.  Horse Pens 40 is a boulderer’s paradise.  Even Solomon loved clamboring up and down the easier rocks.  The place apparently got it’s name from the natural enclosure made by the boulders and rocks that allowed the native american’s of the area to enclose their horses.  I would love to go back and explore this place more.  It was a bit crowded on the day of our visit and there weren’t many toddler’s running or screaming around so we kept it short.

At this point we really think we are heading home and then we see one more historic site sign and this one was hard to pass up.  John Looney’s Cabin in Ashville.  A carload full of Looney’s just can’t turn that one down.  Dave posed for a photo next to the historical marker and then we were finally off to the grandparent’s house for some R&R after our vacation.

Related Photos