Cedars of Lebanon, TN

Over a year ago, a person I met on a graveyard tour of Warner Parks ("Take a walk back in time visiting the cemeteries of the Parks. Take a step into the future to see what park staff and volunteers are doing to preserve these historical treasures.") suggested that I join her and a group from Tennessee Trails on an excursion to the Cedars of Lebanon State Park, about 35 minutes East of Nashville.

The scheduling didn't work out at the time, but this Saturday Les and I ventured East to check it out for ourselves. Since I am still obsessed with "getting steps" (thanks to my hip-side step counter), I suggested that we take the five-mile trail through the woods. We started around 3:00 p.m., and I was sure that we could hike five miles in three hours, getting back to the car before the sun went down around 5:45 p.m.

The "cedars" in this state park are actually juniper trees (I looked that up on the internet -- I'm not that much of a tree-identifying genius...), but were mistaken for cedars by the first settlers in the area. Aside from a forest of juniper trees, the other interesting thing about this park is that there are a lot of limestone sinkholes throughout the area, many large enough to fall into and crack your head open. We also saw a few sinkholes that looked like they could be caves, but since we didn't have our spelunking gear with us, we stayed top-side.

The discovery of these big holes did create a sense of urgency as we considered navigating the trail post-dusk, and our first-hour exploratory attitude shifted to, “Let’s not dawdle too much!”

By 5:30 p.m., I was convinced that we were certainly never going to make it around the loop to the trailhead where we had started. It seemed like we had been walking for hours, and I was reminded of the time I walked the 8-mile loop at Kensington Park, convinced by mile 5 that I had surely walked past my parked car and was going around a second time (I hadn’t – it was just a really, really long trail). Back in the juniper forest, I was encouraged when we came out of the dead-quiet of deep wilderness and emerged on the edge of a housing development. We hiked in sight of open fields and houses for 15 minutes, before heading back into the woods. Just as I was starting to feel a little nervous (again), we saw signs for the trailhead and were back in our car by 5:55 p.m.

Overall, the Cedars of Lebanon State Park features a variety of terrain, a pretty level hiking path, and a definite sense of being far away from civilization. But we hardly saw any wildlife, which seemed odd for being so far out in the woods with nary a human in sight (new slogan for Cedars State Park: “If you hate wildlife, you’ll love our park!”). Because of the tree cover, you are rarely hiking in direct sunlight, but you don’t get much of a breeze either. We were glad to be visiting the park during a mid-70s day rather than a day with a higher temperature. We thought it could get a little hot in there during the summer months.

After hiking, we drove further down Route 231 to Murfreesboro to get dinner at The Clay Pit, an Indian restaurant we had read good things about. Although the cafeteria-style buffet is unusual (you feel like a piggy getting up in front of everyone to ask for seconds; on the plus side, there is less wasted food), the food was great and the staff made you feel very welcomed.

All in all, it was a great day!