Fort Donelson National Monument

August 29, 2013.

Crystal and I went to Tennessee for the Sunrise Century 100 mile bike ride in Clarksville, Tennessee this weekend, and we got there a bit early to "settle in" with the climate and do a bit of sightseeing before the event. The good fortunes of bicycling became evident when we decided to stop for a bite at a Subway in Dover Tennessee before we got to Clarksville. While we were eating, a very fit young man comes in the front door, looks around a couple of seconds and comes straight for our table. Asks us ....." are you the ones with the bikes on the back of the silver car?"  "Yes" I replied ..... Then he asked if we were going to do the Sunrise ride Saturday, "Yes", I replied ....... He said he was going to be in the "elite peloton" ..... the one that tries every year to break the existing record, right now set at 3:44 for the 100 miles. So ..... we chatted with him for a while, and told him we wanted to get in a little riding before the big event. One of the things I wanted to do was to visit Fort Donelson National Monument ..... a Civil War fort and battleground. He did mention that it would be a very short ride through there, but he had a suggestion. There was a little ride he trained on that went through the "Land Between The Lakes" National Rec area that was fun ...... of course, there  are a couple of little ol' hills on that route, but they're not bad at all.... So, we promised to swing by his place of business the next morning and he'd give us a map. He really was a very nice, friendly young man ...... how could he ever lie to us about lil' ol' hills .........

Friday, August 30, 2013

Up and about early ..... to the absolutely worst motel breakfast ever!!! But we thought, we'd eat a bit later anyway. And so, we headed out. I had checked before I left, and they take my "Golden Age" passport, so it was free to see, and we took off to visit our battlefield. We did stop at the A1 Collision Center to visit again with Kevin, and pick up the map he promised. I noticed one of his employees chuckling a bit when he once again told us about a "couple of lil' bitty hills" on this route, but I really didn't pay any attention. And so ..... we were off once again. The battlefield and fort there turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip....and fortunately, the only battleground between Crystal and I the entire weekend, as we seem to get along wonderfully. This place is absolutely beautiful.

The Fort itself was temporary quarters, made a bit more permanent by using some 400 log cabins with canvas roofs made from their tents. These things were tiny! Two officers or four non-coms in each one. The battle fought here was the first Union victory of the Civil War, a fact unknown to me.

This was a rebuilt replica cabin taken from old photos and rebuilt to be historically accurate. The old fort grounds were quite beautiful as well...

I saw much evidence that 150 years after the passage of war, even in a bloody battlefield there can once again be peaceful coexistence. 

 

 

The River Batteries....

 

 

 The lower river batteries.

 

Another shot of the lower river batteries.

Crystal caught me in a moment of clowning around, but the purpose was to show the size of these smoothbore guns.



Once a taker of lives is now a giver of life!

The precarious position of our bikes made it a somewhat urgent matter to get back to them and move on.

The entire area of this National Monument was just stunningly beautiful. Crystal, riding off into the wilderness.

There is a National Cemetery at Fort Donelson but in it you will not find any remains of Confederate soldiers ...... here's why.... I never knew.....

Here is the separate Confederate monument.

 At the end of our little ride ....6 miles altogether, we toured the small museum they had there and chatted with the Ranger for a bit.

This was a replica of the gun deck of a Union ironclad with a naval rifle in restored condition.

 



 

 The rifling in the bore of the Naval piece.

This is a good example of the soldier's "ration" of the day.

 

 

Peanuts, rice, beans and hard tack. Pretty meager by today's standards, I'd say.

 

 

Still Friday, the 30th of August.

 

From Fort Donelson, we stopped in Dover for a quick fast food lunch (proved to be a mistake later) we really would have been better off with a snack now and a meal later. The lunch was like a battleship anchor going up those hills.  After lunch, we moved on to the Land Between The Lakes, an innocent enough sounding name. We parked at the Information Center, three miles in from Dover while we did our ride.  It did indeed start out gentle....

 

 

 

Here, you can see the beginnings of the hills in the background. After we got off the main road, and onto the secondary backroads, most hills were of the hike-a-bike variety. No pictures of those, I was just too busy trying to get up and over. I followed Crystal up one, and she made it about halfway before getting off, I actually went on by (crawling), and was able to ride almost to the summit before getting off and waiting. These were not only steep, they were downright long as well. I remember more than once coming down one of these hitting 40mph and looking ahead and both of us saying at the same time....."Ohhhh SHIT!!!" The hills were steep, and the day was warm, but it was such a beautiful ride, neither of us really complained, and we both laughed about it afterward. Now I see why Kevin can average over 25mph for 100 miles.......

Back in the woods I spied this ancient graveyard in the trees and got off the bike to investigate. Old graves ..... born 1806, died 1854.

 The small white crosses are the unmarked graves of blacks who weren't allowed to have marked graves. Most of these in this cemetery were slaves.

 Anyway, this was just another beautiful ride through stunning countryside. We were both so very glad that we took an extra day to go exploring. In fact, both of us exclaimed more than once that we wished we had taken an extra week. By the time we got through this "gentle" 26 mile ride, we were hot, tired, sweaty, and ready for a shower. A 45 minute ride back to Clarksville, shower, and a bit of rest and we were ready for dinner. We enjoyed a nice Italian dinner and got back to our room and I said....... "Hey, it's only 6pm, lets mosey on downtown and see the historical downtown and Riverwalk"...... Crystal, always quick to agree, said sure......and so we turned right around and headed downtown. Once again, this day proved to be one of the best. We spent several hours there and enjoyed every minute.

Clarksville Downtown and Riverwalk

 

We started out walking the riverwalk. While we were trying to find it, we had stopped and asked direction a couple of times, and found the people of Clarksville to be so very nice, polite, and accommodating. We did find it, and it proved to be a nice walk. Only a mile or so, each way, but so very pretty. Many of the reviews I had read mentioned such a terrible odor here, but both of us commented that we smelled nothing unusual at all, and it was a gorgeous walk.

The bridge in the photo above was a very unusal style of drawbridge in that the center section (where the control house is), pivoted 90 degrees to parallel the river and allow larger boats to pass.

This was inside one of the Riverwalk pavilions. A very detailed model from scratch. A lot of the decking and other woodwork appeared to be carved from Popsicle sticks. Unbelievable detail.

A good example of the old churches of the day.... Love the tall steeples.

This is now a museum, what it was originally, I have no idea. It was closed for the evening when we went by. Unusual architecture.

Crystal clowning around.....and my turn to get even for the cannon shot....

After the sun went down, we went back to the Riverwalk, and did it again. It was so much more spectacular after dark. Crystal was a bit nervous about going there after dark, but the people we met were just the nicest!

The clock on one of the side streets, looks authentic, but it's a modern replica, still a nice touch. We both thought the idea of preserving the past made the old town much more enjoyable to visit. We noticed this theme throughout the area as old buildings were not torn down, but totally renovated instead. Our heritage in action! 

This is the Children's fountain. Children in various playtime poses, but the one at the very top was in his mortarboard and with his book saying that learning is the most important thing of all.

Such a wonderful day this was, we got back to the hotel, totally exhausted, a sure sign that we left no stone unturned, and did and saw everything there was in the time we had. So much fun, and such a beautiful place.