RonnieAdventures: RonnieAdventure #0674 - Knoxville to Ozone Falls, Tennessee

The 266-foot tall Sunsphere from the 1982 World's Fair in Nashville (population 715,884), Tennessee, is still standing in the downtown World's Fair Park. When open, visitors can ride to Sunsphere's observation deck for $5.

In addition to Sunsphere, other remaining structures in the park are the Tennessee Amphitheater and some statues.

While walking in the park I found a statue of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, the greatest concert pianist of his time. He traveled all the way from Russia to Knoxville, played a concert in an auditorium, boarded a train bound for Russia, and then died on the train ride. The people of Knoxville felt so bad that he died after his Knoxville concert, they commissioned Russian sculptor Viktor Brokarev to make a statue of Rachmaninoff for the World's Fair Park. This is the only statue of Rachmaninoff in the Western Hemisphere.

The southwest corner of the park is dedicated to the famous basketball coach Pat Summitt.

Picture by Ashley

While we were in Knoxville we also drove by the University of Tennessee, Brenda Lawson Athletic Center, and Neyland Stadium.

Picture by Ashley

Kingston (population 5,953) is the county seat for Roane County, so we visited the various exhibits and memorials around the original and current courthouses. The original courthouse has an interesting history and is now the Roane County Heritage Center.

On September 21, 1807, the State Legislature met on the courthouse site and named it to be the State Capitol site for a day. This location was named as the capitol site to fulfill an agreement with the Cherokee Indians, so that the Indians would relinquish the proposed capitol site at the Fort Southwest Point. The Capitol was eventually built in Nashville.

Picture by Ashley

Fort Southwest Point was a frontier outpost that was constructed in 1797 and served as the meeting place between the Cherokee Indians and the United States government. It was also a way station for early settlers traveling westward.

The fort was abandoned in the 1800s and the structures were destroyed. However, archaeologists have excavated the site and determined the fort's layout. Based on the archeologists' findings, part of the fort has been reconstructed on the original site on a hill overlooking the the confluence of the Tennessee and the Clinch Rivers. The site is now part of the City of Kingston.

On our map, Ozone Falls appeared to be just a short distance from the Interstate; so we put the GPS coordinated into our phone and followed a lesser used winding road through the forest. After several miles, we began to wonder if we had the correct GPS coordinates. Then, we went around a bend in the road, and there was a sign for the falls, and the trailheads for several hiking paths.

Ozone Falls are 110-feeet tall, located along Fall Creek in the Ozone Falls State Natural Area. Disney used the falls as a location when filming the live-action file Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.

We were told that there was a hiking trail to the bottom of the falls, but we could not find the trailhead. Other people were also looking for the trail and could not find it, so the trailhead must have been located farther downstream.

Across the road from the trailheads was an old train trestle and several patches of blooming plants.