We left Fort Valley Ranch on a bright cold, sunny day and headed south to Tennessee on Route 81. I was pulling the 2 horse trailer with my Ram 1500 and Mike was pulling the 5th wheel RV with his Dodge Ram 3500. After about 4.5 hours we were off the highway and traveling back roads to our next destination. We saw signs for the campground but the roads kept getting narrower and narrower and I worried that our very tall RV was going to have an issue. Cars that were coming toward us had to pull over into the weeds to let Mike and our RV pass. Finally we got to the Cherokee Trails Campground and were able to stop and check in.
It’s a full service RV campground – complete with electric, sewer and water at every site. They have a large paddock near the entrance and a barn at the top of a steep hill that you cannot drive to. You must walk up the hill with your gear, food and hay—and of course your horse. It wasn’t cheap either – it cost us $212 for a 2 night stay. $20 per night per horse for stalls and an additional amount for the paddock each day plus the RV site fee. Hiking up the hill with the grain and hay was a real issue and it seemed to be an issue with others as well. There were 3 paddocks and if there was a horse in them the other horses had to stay in their stalls. You were to tack up at the barn too. We were not thrilled about having to haul our gear up there either. A wheelbarrow would have been helpful in that case.
There were a couple of dogs running around the place which caused an issue for our dog…he wasn’t thrilled that those dogs were running up to him while he was trying to do his business. They were other RVers dogs –not the owner’s. His dogs were well behaved and he was a retired gentleman who just enjoyed talking to people.
We checked out the trails and the only way to get to them was to walk on the roads. Having come up those roads we weren’t happy about being back on them on horseback. We talked to some of the other horseback riders and there was a trail you could take that would climb to the top of a mountain in the area. The views were supposed to be great. But the people who had gone were drenched in sweat and their horses were too. The temperatures were humid and climbing into the 90’s that day. We decided to give the horses a break and let them relax because they would be in the trailer again the next day anyway.
We went out to hunt for supplies and finally found a gas station and convenience/food store about 5 miles away. Not much else is around the area. It wound up raining so we figured we made the right choice!
The next morning we packed up and headed out to our next place in Tennessee…also about 4.5 hours away.
901 Morrell Creek Ln, Bluff City, Tennessee 37618
(423) 391-0118
