Our Tennessee state park list has another one ticked off…Montgomery Bell State Park. This park is located just west of Nashville and is so lovely. We loved the winding road in the hills and through the trees. As per usual, we started off at the visitor center to use the restrooms and get a park map. Then we went on a short trail next to the visitor center called the Jim Bailey Trail. We were thrilled to discover that this trail is also one of the storybook trails with pages of a children’s book staggered along the trail. This story was about counting leaves and the seasons of leaves. This is a great trail because it does a loop up and around the hill but is not quite a mile long. But with the exposed roots and wooden beams to walk across it makes it feel more wild than it is. (PS, can we just take a minute to appreciate a little girls hiking attire in these pictures- the dress, sweatshirt, leggings, and Minnie Mouse Hat just makes me smile!)
After our short hike, we drove around to check out more of this beautiful park. This is considered a resort state park because it has a golf course, a restaurant, a hotel, a swimming pool, and plenty of pavilions and camping spots. We made stop at the restaurant to see what it looked like, and wow, we will definitely be coming back here for dinner sometime.
Then we drove over to the spillway to see the water fall. Spillway is not a very pretty name for something that really was quite lovely. The water spills over from the lake over a series of bricks then is taken down a short passage before ending up in the river. It was very clever to see how it worked. We followed the trail from the spillway that goes down along the water. There were a bunch of people out fishing in the lake and canoeing over the water. None of the fishermen we talked to seemed to have had much luck, but seemed happy just to be there. And on such a beautiful day in such a beautiful park there could be no complaints.
But not only is this park beautiful, but it also has a small claim to fame in the movie world. The great 80s movie ‘Earnest Goes to Camp’ with Jim Varney was filmed at this state park. The visitor center is home to some of the memorabilia from the movie. Seeing the park brought back some fond childhood memories from watching that movie- Know what I mean, Vern?
Overall, this park definitely made its way into our top favorites of the state parks that we have visited and we will be back to enjoy more of its peaceful beauty another day.
For more on this beautiful state park, check out :: tnstateparks.com/parks/montgomery-bell
