Minister's Tree house/Cumberland Mt. State Park

I'm ready to hike. I'm not a hat person, but it was cold!

Hi everyone!  I knows it’s been a long time, but school has been very busy. (I had my observation on Thursday.) Last weekend was the last Clarksville Downtown Market for the season.  I had a good day, but it will be nice to have my Saturdays open for a while!

This is from last weekend when we went to see Wicked in Nashville for my birthday.

  This weekend Nick got us a room (with travel points) for us in Crossville, TN.  You have probably gone by it on the interstate when you were headed to Knoxville or Gatlinburg.  It may not look like much from the highway, but it is on the Cumberland Plateau and very pretty.

Our main plan was to go hiking in the Cumberland Mountain State Park.  Last night, I did a simple search of things to do in the area and I came across something called the Minister’s Tree house.  I had never heard of it, but there were lots of positive comments left on the travel site. We decided that it would be worth a look.

When you are used to getting up every day at 5 am it’s hard to sleep in.  We had stayed up late and luckily we were able to sleep in till around 7:30.  We ate our free breakfast in the hotel and then took off in search of this tree house.

Some of the steps are a little rickety.  It gives you a disconcerting feeling.  I wouldn't take little kids there.  It would be dangerous.

There are lots of religious carvings in the tree house.

 This large room is the chapel.

It was really amazing.  The builder supposedly had a vision about building this tree house and he started building it in 1993 and has continued for 17 more years. It is totally free also, but there is place to leave a donation if you felt so inclined.  Here we were at the dead end on a country lane and there was probably 20 cars in the field with license plates from all over.  There was even one from Massachusetts.  The tree house is full of religious themes and peoples’ signatures written everywhere.  It’s hard to describe in words, but I would recommend it to anyone.  I hope the pictures do it justice.

The view from the top!  Jesus!

View from another level

After that, we headed to the park for hiking.  We had several choices, but we chose a trail that was a little over 2 miles.  The day was perfect, sunny and in the 50s. Our hike was nice and we rewarded ourselves with fajitas at the local Mexican restaurant afterwards.  We drove around, saw the sights and came back to the hotel early.  We just finished watching “The Runaway Jury” and now Nick is watching UT football.  I’m not sure what tomorrow has in store.

This suspension bridge was very bouncy!!!

Earring News:  I have had two co-workers ask me to bring my jewelry to school.  I took them, and as always the teachers loved them and bought many things.  I have just started making feather earrings and they are very popular.  One of my friends that goes on Torch trips saw a picture of them on FB and wanted me to send her some.  Who knows??? Maybe I’ll start selling them on the internet.  I don’t know….I’m already busy and I don’t want to get too big.