On Saturday, I was speaking to my wife, who is currently in Thailand learning traditional Thai Massage for her business MASSAGE by Terrah Banakas, and I was telling her how I wanted to get out somewhere to get some photos of a sunset, since sunrises and sunsets just make great photos even more awesome. She suggested that I head west to somewhere on the Cumberland Plateau so I decided that I would go to Burgess State Park.
I decided that I would make a picnic of sorts since my children and I would be traveling almost two hours west, and it would be too late to cook dinner when we got home. Also during my planning I took into account that we would be crossing into the central time zone, and left in time to get there, hike to the big fall and scout out the area for that perfect shot. I was planning on the sun to go down starting at about 5:25 ish Central Standard Time (that’s about the time it starts going down where I live). So I planned our trip so that we would get there about 4pm and have time to do all that I had planned.
We ended up getting there just before 4pm and bundled up for the hike and started down the path. At this time, the park ranger came up from the trail and informed us that the park would be closing at 4:30pm. This came to a suprise to me since it was just now 4pm. He did say that we would have enough time to make the 3/4 mile hike and back in time. I was still suprised that they were closing so early. But after thinking about it, since I live on the western edge of the Eastern time zone, I really hadn’t travled that far into the Central time zone, that the sun actually sets a lot earler than I and anticipated.
We did end up at the falls, but we didn’t have the time that I wanted to get to the very bottom of the main fall and get the shot that would really show the scale of this waterfall, but I was able to get a couple of shots that I will be sharing over time. We didn’t have time to have our picnic at the park, but we did stop at a rest stop on the way home, had our dinner and took a potty break. Overall, we had a good time, even though it was cut short due to our limited time.
The sun was going down by the time we got there, and it would have been nice to be able to stay there until dusk, but I guess since this is a State Park they want everyone to be safe and out of the park before it got too dark and someone gets hurt.
This is one waterfall that I will have to return one morning (they open the gate at 8), as the sun would be rising from behind the fall and not cast it’s harsh shadows on the fall itself until later in the day.
