The Lost Sea

Sunday we headed for Tennessee. I was looking forward to seeing the “Mighty Mississippi” River. It wasn’t much to look at, at least crossing at Memphis, TN. (The Tennessee River, however, was very pretty.) We were most interested in sites in the eastern part of the state so we decided to take a southern route out of Memphis that took us in to Mississippi and Alabama. We did our first boondocking (dry camping) in a Walmart parking lot in Huntsville, Alabama. It was quite different from our previous night at such a nice campground, but it was the only thing available. The route we were on was nice, but not many facilities, not even rest areas.

Monday we again headed north in to Tennessee. We had our second experience sleeping in a Ford dealership lot. This time by choice. We needed to have our scheduled maintenance on the truck, and since we had gotten a VERY early start (and not much sleep at Camp Walmart), we took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep while they worked on the truck. Worked out great!

We were on our way by noon, headed for Sweetwater, TN to see the Lost Sea. The Lost Sea is a four acre underground lake in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. As has been throughout most of our travels so far, we were the only ones on the tour of the cavern and lake. It is amazing to think that we had this huge cavern to ourselves! Our guide, Karen, was a lot of fun. She was very patient with all of our picture taking. It was difficult to get good pictures in such low light. (I told Pamm to use her flash (duh!) but she said that it was not working properly.)

Here I am with the ladies at the Lost Sea. The one on the right is Karen, our guide.

This is the tunnel into the cavern. It sure looks dark down there. I may find a nice place for a nap down there!

There were lots of great places to explore.

Even in 1877 graffiti was popular. These names and dates were burned into the rocks.

Limestone formations in the cavern.
I found the Lost Sea! Karen took us out on a small boat that had a glass bottom. The lake is stocked with trout which are fed each time a boat goes out. The fish jump everywhere, waiting for the food. Sometimes they even jump into the boat!