Soddy-Daisy – Seeing the Scenic City

This past weekend Derek and I headed up to the town of Soddy-Daisy to check out their Pioneer Day event. A thank you goes out to the Chattanooga Times Free Press for publishing an article with the weekend’s events, otherwise I would have had no idea this was happening! It is helpful to follow local news!

Now, I will admit, with no fault to Soddy-Daisy, that the living history event was, well, a bit dinky. This feeling of mine only stems from many, many years of reenacting at very large living history events! Still, I was glad to get out and do something new and different for an hour.

Pioneer Day was held at Poe’s Tavern Historical Park, next to City Hall. Poe’s Tavern was originally constructed in 1817, with a replica on the original foundation now.

According to soddy-daisy.org, Poe’s Tavern was Hamilton County’s First Courthouse and County Seat. The tavern was also used as a hospital for both Union and Confederate troops during the Civil War.

At Pioneer Day, there was a woman in a historical outfit cooking cornbread on the fireplace. Everyone got free samples.

There were also booths showing historic rifles, locally found arrowheads, basket weaving, coal mining supplies and an 1800s cider press, which I got to take a turn on for a bit.

The big draw for me was a Civil War set up, presented by the Tennesseans for Living History. We were treated to some music by a banjo and fiddle player. I really miss reenacting sometimes!

There was a Robert E. Lee impersonator there, but I only wish I hadn’t seen him walking around the grounds with a can of beer — or soda, I’ll try to give him the benefit of the doubt — in his hands!!!

I have checked off another hiking trail off my to-do list! Derek and I hiked Big Soddy Creek Gulf in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, which is about 20 minutes north of where we live.

We arrived at 9 a.m. to avoid the crowds. We did come across a few people, but the trail was wide, so it was easy to keep our distance. We actually forgot our face masks at home, but this ended up not being an issue, thankfully.

The entire trail is about 5 miles, out and back, but the most popular part is the beginning, 1.25 miles along a flat, gravel road that follows the creek and opens up to swimming holes along the way. We couldn’t have gone further even if we had wanted to, because a wooden bridge was damaged and unusable, perhaps from the storm and tornado we had in April?

The other side of the trail features interesting rock formations and a water fall about a mile in. When we were there it was only a trickle, but I am sure it is gushing after a heavy rain.

The trail also features a lot of picnic tables along the way (we made use of these) and there is signage indicating how far you have walked.

A highlight for me was finding lots of clusters of Mountain Laurel, which is the Pennsylvania state flower. I had lived in Pennsylvania for about 10 years, and yet I had only seen the flower in the wild once.

This is really nice trail, and I might consider coming back in the summer to go swimming. The water is really clear and cold!

We were finished and heading back to the car at about 10:30 a.m., at the same time the trail started to fill up. Hopefully more trails will open in the future, and we can continue to properly social distance by arriving early as we did today.