A job fair coming to Nashville with over 30,000 jobs to fill. How many free festivals are Nashville hosting this fall? And Nashville traffic… is it still bad? We also talk about a region of Tennessee that just may be the most biodiverse part of the world.
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00:07 Hello everybody. This is the Nashville daily podcast. I'm Stuart Deming and I'm Erin Pennington. There was a job fair coming to Nashville with over 30,000 jobs to fill. How many free fall festivals is Nashville hosting this year?
00:20 And Nashville traffic. Is it still bad? This is the national daily
00:34 Yes. To answer Erin's question, the answer is yes. Traffic is still bad. It's a Wednesday morning. We are ramping up for event season here in middle Tennessee. It's already started and we have a lot of events to cover. Let's get into it. What's the first event that we want to cover for this? For this day? On the podcast we have
00:54 The Tennessee state fair that is already happening started on September 6th and we'll go through the 15th. And you can get some nice deep fried butter at the Tennessee state fair. Better go to Tennessee state fair.org for that one. And this is an event that's a happening all across Nashville and it's the Americana music festival started off, starts on the 10th, so yesterday and then goes through the 15th. And you can go to Americana music.org to find out more about the Americana music festival that's happening all over the city.
01:37 Also on Sunday afternoon, this is September 15th you have the Titans versus the Colts at 12:00 PM and then this one I'm super excited about is Disney on ice from the 12th through the 15th everything is on the 15th of this week. That is going to be a busy day. That's at Bridgestone arena and they have numerous apps, different showings for Disney on ice. What's happening in South Nashville on Sunday?
02:03 Well, so speaking of September the 15th this is another event that is happening. This is called fiestas, but three us, and this is happening at Plaza mariachi and that's off of Nolan's Hill pike, correct? Correct.
02:16 It's about 15 minute drive away from downtown Nashville and they're shutting down the parking lot and the, this is for the celebration of the Mexican independence day, so they're going to have live music from 12:00 PM to 10:00 PM they're going to have food trucks. It's a huge event. Last year, they said nearly throughout the entire day, nearly 20,000 people showed up for this event at Plaza mariachi.
02:40 Yeah. It says live music all day, two stages. Kids stage with characters, shows, food, vendors, activities Crito ceremony and fireworks. So this is where this is going to be a, it's for free, right? Very fun event. Well, obviously you probably have to pay phooey I did everything just in general. The music and stuff will be free. Yeah. You can go and enjoy yourself and not have to pay like an entry fee to get into this event. So, and I think he could watch the fireworks for free, not like other places in town. Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, so, you know, getting into some business news we've got one from the Tennessee in and it's ramen auditorium collects industry accolades amid busy 2019. We all know that the Ryman, and I've said this on the podcast before, we all know the Ryman is one of the best music venues in the country, especially for smaller shows.
03:40 The Tennessee and just points out some of the awards that have been one from this. And the, the ramen is 127 years old. They're on track to host 282 events this year. That's [inaudible] this year for 2019, which is insane. Just a few of the events that were one you mean the awards? Yeah the, yeah, the awards that were won, they w earning the Pollstar award for theater of the year, which is incredible. That's a great one to have. Country music association award for venue of the year. And they said most recently, the Academy of country music award for small venue of the year. And the Ryman said, you know, they really love these awards because they're peer-driven awards. Yes. And so that really kind of speaks highly of them.
04:33 If music managers and musicians will actually vote for these awards. So, and they had their first hip hop group this year, the Wu Tang clan, and then a little big town has performed there numerous times this year. Jason his bell and just numerous artists, 283 shows. That's ULAR 282 shows. That's a lot of events that happen in one space.
04:56 Speaking of a lot of events that are happening in one space, we have a, the answer to our question at the beginning. How many free fall festivals are going to be in the national middle Tennessee area? A well, it's a lot.
05:11 Oh, so this is found on the Tennessee and that is 29 free festivals happening throughout Nashville fall festivals and the middle Tennessee. Some of these look really cool. I've heard a couple of these. This one looks interesting on this. So this is on Tennessee and it's number 22 on the list. Haunted museum storytelling Fest, the Tennessee state museums annual haunted museum storytelling Fest is 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM on October 26 there'll be chilling goes stories from Tennessee's pass as well as snacks, games, our activities, costume parades and performances by Nashville public libraries. Public
05:47 Truck. Have you heard of standing stones state park?
05:52 Yes, I have, but I have no idea where standing stone state park is.
05:56 It's in Hill ham, Tennessee. [inaudible] Northeast of Nashville. He'll ham Hill ham maybe hilum who knows how it's pronounced. We'll have to go there. And is there a bond down? Is there a bunch of hams like running on these Hills? I driving down the Hill. I don't think ham specifically can run down the Hill, but a this apparently there's a Superbowl of Marvel's competition that's happening at the state park. So if you're in the marbles and just anything I guess collecting plain, that's where you need to be this September 14th, that Saturday. In what park was that? That standing stones handing South park. I wonder if there's a standing stone. Get it. Maybe. I don't know if we're gonna be talking about state parks. They named it completely wrong. I'm intrigued by, this is number 27 on the list. Jack Daniels barbecue Fest, the 31st Jack Daniel's world championship international barbecue is October 25th through 26 in Lynchburg.
06:54 There'd be live music, barbecue cooking competition games, but bowling don't know what that is. Bong toss in country dog contest and lots of sampling. Aaron, I think I may have to go down to that one. Then have some Jack Daniels barbecue. Well you might want to consider this one also. This is probably the most well known out of this list and that's Nashville's Oktoberfest. Is that the same weekend as the Jack Daniels barbecue? This is October 10th through the 13th. I could do both of those. Yes. And this is the 40th annual Nashville October Fest, one of the largest such festivals in the South. So not only expanding past Germantown but also into the bicentennial mall. Yeah. Last year it says they had over 300,000 visitors to this October fests. That is, have you ever been to the October? I have. I usually try to go to the October Fest every year if I'm able to make it.
07:48 And it is, it's very crowded. So I don't think I've actually got, I've, I've driven a lot of passengers, but I don't think I've ever like experienced it myself because I've been to like Oktoberfest is up North and those things are a lot of fun. So, I don't know how they will do down here in the South. It's great. It's, you know, not unlike a lot of other vendor based fests. There was a lot of local vendors that have their tens obviously a lot of of great beer, great food and activities for kids, a few activities for adults. But it's mostly walking around and drinking good beer, having good food and they're, you know, expanding it to the bicentennial mall. So that'll be very interesting to see. Yeah, that's very smart. How that benefits the festival, huh? Yeah. So you can check this out.
08:36 I went to Tennessee and.com we'll link, listen in our show notes, make sure to check out some of these free festivals. It's just a lot of fun that these places and locations host. And there's things that you may have never experienced at some of these festivals. Yeah. And now we're moving into, it seems like Amazon is in our business section probably quite a bit. At least once a week. Yeah, absolutely. Today. It's for a, it's first ever career day hosting in national September 17th, various locations across the, so that's next Tuesday, correct. Just the country, but national is going to be a part of that. Amazon, it says on their website, this is courtesy of the Nashville business journal. This article will be linked in the show notes. All the details will be in there, 30,000 full and part time jobs to fill across the country.
09:24 And, and again, you know, they are also going to be hiring for their 5,000 jobs operation hub in downtown Nashville. Amazon also has five distribution hubs in the region. And it says some other career day locations are Arlington, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and Seattle. So if you're thinking about, you know, working for a company like Amazon then I would say go ahead and and career day, check out the career day. Again, this article will be in the show notes or happening at cannery ballroom on, near downtown. All right, so a downtown, hopefully you can find some free parking to go to that event.
10:04 Yeah, if not, definitely Lyft or Uber. So every day we like to cover a different tip of how to experience Nashville. And we're going to dive into this a little bit deeper, but our tip of the day is go to your local state park, which are, there's 56 in the state of Tennessee and just get ready for fall. So go to the trails, learn the trails, learn where you wanted to go, see the fall foliage. And that's our tip of the day.
10:29 Yeah. And you can go to a park and you just kind of walk around and get a feel for it. That way if you know there's going to be a great day down in the future that has perfect weather, you want to see a sunrise or sunset from, from that location. You know how to get around in that area and you don't have to make that special trip the first time that you go and you don't know what you're doing.
10:50 Well, that's say that happened to you in the past and I Radnor Lake where you like, Oh, I'm going to take this trail. And then you ended up taking like the eight mile hike. I Radnor. Yeah.
10:58 Luckily it's the same scenery all the way around. So I didn't miss anything as far as scenery wise. But yeah, I mean learn the state parks, you know, learn the trails before you go on them. That way you can have the best experience when you want a spontaneous visit to those parts.
11:14 Yeah. And a really cool thing. So I want you to trust some resources out there like hiking resources cause some of them are not accurate with the trails. So would you trust them? What wouldn't you trust? My primary resource honestly is I go to the Tennessee state parks.com and if you click on the individual maps, they have PDF download and dial down the liberal maps that you don't have to have cell phone service for and you could still show your location. So it's like a geo was a geolocation PDF. It's 99 cents per state park. So it'd be a 50, around $56, but it gives you, especially if you just use your following and you don't know how to read an map, this is a great benefit to have is that geo location offline service map where it tells you exactly where you are in the park.
12:02 Awesome. We're going to get back to the state parks here in a little bit. We're moving into our creator of the day. This is a creator that, you know, we've we've shot with and has been to some of our explore mates and has been just an awesome dude. And his name is Tyree. His Instagram handle is at visuals by Tyree. I'll give you that here in a minute. But one of the reasons that we want to feature him is because he's kind of started this color scheme that we're looking at that is just amazing. On his Instagram photos. Again, you know, some have a, at least selfishly for me, I think a goal of the creator of the day is to continue to make everybody's Instagram feed just a little bit better by highlighting some of our creator favorite creators in the city and get less memes on the platform and continue to have these beautiful images that these creators are, are making go across somebody's Instagram feed. And I think Tyree does an amazing job at capturing cities and, and capturing people in there in, in some awesome city and some landscape environments. And gosh, I'm just almost speechless at some of these photos going across his Instagram.
13:20 Oh, absolutely. And he travels quite a bit. Like this year, I think he's been in Sweden, Japan, he's been all over the world this year and he just, he has amazing shots from all of these cities. Honestly, one of my favorite shots right now on his profile, if you go, if you scroll down a little bit, there's all of these lanterns. What's that like? I'm wondering, Oh man, that shot's beautiful. And then even that shot of Tokyo, a little bit above that shelf, all those people in that crosswalk, there's just a such a cool shot.
13:49 Yeah, it really is. So go ahead and, and please do yourself a favor. This will be in the show notes, but you'll be able to remember this. This is visuals by Tyree and that's at V I, S U a L S, B Y, T, Y, R E. And that's visuals by Tyree. Go ahead and make your Instagram feed a lot better today by following Tyree [inaudible].
14:16 So one thing we like to cover every single day here on the podcast if we AE at local places is where did we eat locally? And I had the opportunity for my 30th birthday. I went out to brunch with Amanda and we went to party foul. And man, let me tell you this, they have this French toast with hot chicken and it's basically like two layers of French toast of like apples in the middle of the French toast. Yeah. Skinless like cooked apples in the middle and then hot chicken on top of it. And then they have this bourbon like maple honey glaze that they put, it's like a syrup they put over this. Oh man, it's so good. I yeah, so party foul. They are killing the brunch game right now. And guess what? Last week they just introduced their brand new menu. So I'm excited. I want to try the street taco. Yeah, they added like six new things with hot chicken and it looks, I'm like, Oh, I have to go there quite a bit now. So I think it was on Monday's episode.
15:16 We were trying to figure out where I eat. I ate at recently and we had actually a person tweet us. Correct. And they guessed correctly what I ate at on Monday. Yeah, they did. It was honey fire over in one Bellevue place. I think it was Ryan. So Ryan, thank you so much for 20 Madison and guessing correctly where Stewart ate and exactly what I ate, what he ate. Oh Ryan, you want a tee shirt and a hat? Yeah, we're going to be sending that to you. So I think you're moving to Nashville soon. So we'll just give it to you. The shave save on shipping is going to hand deliver it to you. But we're we're going to be doing more of that if you want to just tweet it as for fun and say hi, we are at X PLR underscore Nash. That is X P L R underscore Nash. Tweet us and say hi and powerhouse.
16:04 We're going to be doing a lot of giveaways especially we have some really cool giveaways coming to the future and that the only way to win those giveaways is by listening to the episodes. Absolutely. So this episode of the Nashville daily podcast is brought to you by screen to threads. Screen threads is a Nashville carried shop located in the historic marathon village. Use code Nashville daily to get 10% off your next online order. Their website is screened threads.com. Also, if you go in person and mention this ad Nashville daily, you get 10% off your in-person order as well. And probably about a week or so, maybe a little bit later, we're actually going to have the owner Scott Harding of screen threads on the show to learn all about the processes of their prints and their shirts and everything that's happening there.
16:53 And I'll, I'll just say if you are a person who wants to take care of your Christmas shopping early and you've got some people who are like, Hey, why don't you send over a few Nashville things. You're from Nashville, right? Everybody wants a piece of Nashville. So right now, cause Nashville is on fire. It's on fire literally, but Nope, metaphorically. Yeah. So there was a fire that happened in the early 19 hundreds in East Nashville. It's called the Nashville fire. Nothing compared to like the Chicago fire by or in new Orleans in new Orleans fire. But there was an actual fire
17:25 [Inaudible] happened in like 1902 don't quote me on that date, but a burnt down most of East Nashville and it's not really talked about in the history books, but there was a Nashville fire literally and metaphorically Nashville is on fire right now
17:40 Since Nashville is metaphorically on fire right now. Head on over to screen threads.com if you want to take care of a few Christmas gifts early if you're that type of person who wants to just get things done right now because you're thinking about it and this reminded you of it, head on over there and get you some Nashville things right now. All right, so we said we're going to get back into the parks and you know, we're, what we're going to do today is we really want to make the case for you of why you would want to explore the Tennessee state parks system if you already have explored the Tennessee state park system. That's amazing. Hopefully, you know, maybe we can give you a little bit more information that you may not have known where, you know, a little bit of, of some history nerds and we love doing some research on this type of stuff.
18:34 But if you're somebody who says, I, you know, either I'm new to Nashville or I'm going to be visiting Nashville or I'm not outdoorsy or, yeah, or you're not outdoors-y, you know, how can we make this experience good for you so that, you know, you can make your first Tennessee state park visit, you know, a memorable one and you know, what are going to be the benefits of going to the Tennessee state park. And we really want to bring this up because it's, you know, starting to slowly cooled down. Not right now, we're still in the nineties this way or still unfortunately. But as the leaves start changing and outdoor trips become more desirable, we want to help you kind of experience what a Tennessee state part visit might be like and where you're going to find the benefit in visiting a Tennessee state park. So let's just start with the basics. I don't know, I'm going to let Stuart start with this. You came from a state, you came from New York. Yes. You came from a state that had and still has some really good state parks before you even came to tennis.
19:38 Oh, absolutely. So New York state had, I don't know, I can't remember the exact number of state parks that they have, but they also they have 30 different waterfalls throughout the state of New York. They have the Andrew Rondex mountains, which are fricking stunning. Yeah. So there, there's a lot of parks in New York and I'm, I'm a very outdoors guy. I've been an outdoors guy all of my life. Even as a child, I'll be out in the woods near my house building forts or like going into the, like the little streams and playing with the water to the point where I had 19 leeches on the one time. That was, that was worthy. And yeah, that was a very, a interesting thing. I don't want to go into too much detail for that one, but that one was bad.
20:21 What was your, what was your, did you have any expectation of Tennessee state parks when you moved down here?
20:28 No. So like when I moved here, I moved here to work for a church down in Franklin and I didn't realize I didn't realize how well maintained and how well preserve this park system is. And I had no idea. The only thing I knew about was the smokey. I didn't realize that there was over 81 parks or 91 parks. There's 56 parks in the system, but there's over 81 waterfalls within the park system. I didn't even realize that the biodiversity of the parks, I didn't realize how much the parks have event space. I didn't realize I had swimming holes. I didn't realize any of this stuff. And so my first park experience here, when I moved to Franklin, I went to Radnor Lake state park. That's a good fans first. The first, the one I went to, it was a fall of 2013, I think.
21:24 And the Radnor Lake was the state first one I went to and I ended up going hiking around four 34 45 in the afternoon, right when it was about to get dark and it got dark and I was on the trails by, by myself in the dark. I'm like, Oh, this is, this is fun. I haven't hiked in the dark by myself with no flashlights, no cell phone, anything in a while. And so like I got lost I Radnor Lake state park my first time I ever went because I went hiking in the dark pretty much. And would not recommend if for a first time hiker. No, definitely. Definitely don't do that. I, I am an experienced hiker. Like I've hiked before this and I'm really good with directions and so I was able to get myself back even in the dark at Radnor Lake. But my first experience there, after I experienced that, I was literally at Radnor Lake every single week.
22:12 I've been to Radnor Lake probably over 350 times now. I absolutely adore that place. So [inaudible] are like really kind of sparked your, your love for the Tennessee state park. Absolutely. Radnor Lake was that like me getting lost and I, I enjoy actually getting lost. A lot of people don't, but I do. Me getting lost at Radnor Lake state park was what really encouraged my love for the park system. Oh wow. That's awesome. So just a few facts about the Tennessee state parks really quickly. There's like Stuart's at 56 unique parks, 1300 miles of trails, 372 cabins, 36 campgrounds, 80 and plus waterfalls, 80 plus waterfalls. So not just little baby waters. Oh no, these are nice water or these are big boy waterfalls. They, they say we were talking to one guy at Tennessee state park at comments falls and he said there's 181 waterfalls within 83 miles.
23:11 Yeah. And most of those are on private property. Tennessee has some big waterfalls. And I find it interesting when I flew into New York city last time when we went up to New York city a couple of weeks ago, six weeks ago is soon as you get into their airport, they're like, come visit our 30 waterfalls. And I'm like, Oh, you're cute. New York had 30 waterfalls. Like Tennessee has 30 waterfalls within like two miles of each other. Yeah, no, yeah. No, not, not even joking. It's crazy. And so what was kind of the, the next step for you exploring the, the state
23:46 Park system after you, you found your love for Radnor Lake and you know, when did you start your journey to find all these other Tennessee state parks?
23:57 I just I've had so many deep moments. I Radnor Lake spiritually that I'm like, okay, I need to go discover these other state parks for myself. So out of the 56 state parks, I want to say I've been to about 30 right now. And I have a goal. I've had this goal for a long time to visit all 56 state parks in the year. That's very hard to do. I've actually, I actually have a folder at my house right now with all the maps of every individual park driving maps, everything. Like I've planned this out extensively and all together. If I were to hit this up and spend like 24 hours in each park, it would take me close to a hundred days because of driving. You can't really experience every individual park in 24 hours. And I think altogether from Nashville, if I went to every individual park from Nashville and back, it's 8,000 miles.
24:56 Yeah. So it's, you know, it does take a good bit of, of, of effort and stuff to, to do something like this. You definitely need some, either a lot of time over a long period of time or a
25:08 Strategically you have to, yeah. Just take a short period. Yeah.
25:11 Time off from whatever you're doing to go experience something like this. And you know, what we're trying to, you know, do today is just talk about the, the benefits of, you know, why should you go and experience a state park here in Tennessee, you know, and some of these facts are, are worth doing. There's a lot of stuff to experience if you're into hiking, obviously there's a lot of amazing places to hike, not only here in Nashville, but across the state of with mountains Plains, there's a lot of different parks experience. It's not the, the geography is not nearly the same everywhere in the state. The state has very different geography based off of kind of where you, where you go. And w talk about the, the difference in kind of the, the the, well, I don't know what I'm trying to say. Diverse geographically, the geographic diversity of the state parks
26:09 Across the state and what differs. So don't get me, don't, don't butcher me or don't slaughter me for if I messed up the different valleys and stuff. But over in East Tennessee you have the smoky mountains. The smokey mountains are a huge mountain system in the Eastern coast and technically they're part of the Appalachian mountains. And the Appalachian mountains start all the way in Alabama, go all the way up to a new found land up in Canada and into the Atlantic ocean. But the smokey mountains are a huge national park in East Tennessee. And then you have a lot of these mountain ranges in rolling Hills. I come from East Tennessee into middle Tennessee. And then from middle Tennessee you have the rolling Hills to West Tennessee. You have the Delta flats. And so you have a lot of different mountains, you have a lot of different ecosystems all throughout Tennessee.
27:03 You have a lot of diverse geographic locations. So the highest mountain in Tennessee right now is, or this will always be a, it's LA Conte part of the smokey mountain national park. And you literally have places in Memphis that are almost zero in elevation. And so I'm, I'm looking at this map right now. This is found at, I don't even know how to say this. Aaron to Ron furnace trailed out. Work in T in iron furnished 10 iron. Okay. Yeah, so I'm looking at this map right now and it talks about the Ridge and Valley. Over in East Tennessee you have the Cumberland plateau, which is, that's where like a the Cumberland plateau, that's where Cummins falls is. That's where Burgess falls is. That's where fall Creek falls is waterfalls in that area. Amazing. And you have a lot of caves and then right after that you have the Eastern Highland Highland rim.
28:04 So that's going to be some of your bigger rolling Hills. And then right here where Nashville is located, you have the central basin and then you're going West. You have the Western Highland rim and then keep going West. You have the West Tennessee uplands. So that's going to be like where not just traits, Natchez trace state park is, which I was there for the first time about two weeks ago and I was literally there for maybe two hours and dude, it's close to like 48,000 acres. It's a huge place. They have horseback riding, they have swimming, they have volleyball. Like they have so many activities. You don't have to be an outdoors person who experiences, they have horseback, they have stargazing, they have, they have so many things at this park. Wow. And then now you're getting closer to Memphis and then you have the tendency a West Tennessee Plains.
28:50 So that's going to be like Memphis. I think there's a park over there called, I cannot remember that park, but it's like Pinkerton state park now. No, that's an East Tennessee. It was a battlefield. And during the civil war, I can't remember the name of it, but so you have this diversity throughout the state. Tennessee. You have big mountains to rolling Hills to the flatlands and you do not, there's no park that is the same. No. And you know, I think a good example of a Tennessee state park that offers activities for everybody is Henry Horton. Oh, Henry Horton. That's found in crap. I forget the name of that town. Chapel. Hilton. Apple Hill. Yeah. So that's about what, 60 minutes truck South of Nashville about. And so it's towards Columbia. And they have, they, the Henry Horton state park has a river called the duck river, and the duck river is considered one of the most biodiverse rivers in the world,
29:49 Not only one of the most biodiverse rivers, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world which is absolutely insane. And Henry Horton also has a lot of, of different environmental ecosystems within their own park. But Henry Horton as a part, not only has this amazing biodiversity in the river, which is very cool for outdoorsman, but you also have, you have cabins so you can stay in, you have a golf course for anybody who wants to just get outside in golf. You've got an Olympic size pools, Olympic size pool. They have tennis courts, they have a gun range. They have a restaurant. If you want to host events there, they have an en and they have an event center as well. They have camping. They have, I think over here.
30:44 50 RV sites. Yeah, 56 RV sites. They have three back country campsites. So if you're in the back country hiking, like those 2030 mile hikes, they have that they, they literally have so much to do a Henry Horton and they host a lot of community events there. Yeah. And they have a lot of education as well. So they have a dancer education, they have different education about birds hiking and you can find all the education and all of the different Tennessee state parks. But Henry Horton, Elmo say they're there, they're having events left and right at Henry Horton state park. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, you don't have to experience a Tennessee state park. You don't have to just go out and, you know, prepare a hiking pack and go out hiking. You can, the Tennessee don't, I have discomfort. Henry Horner,
31:30 They do have disc golf there. But to enjoy the Tennessee state parks is to figure out what you love about the outdoors and go visit the park that's going to suit that need. And you know, there's also waterfalls. We mentioned 80 plus waterfalls in Tennessee. There are a lot of waterfalls where you, you just park and you know, within a quarter of a mile you get to see this beautiful waterfall with not only seeing the waterfall, but also seeing and maybe getting to swim down at the bottle down at the bottom with a little water hole and just get to cool off if it's a hotter day. So there's just so much for everything
32:15 Within like a park, even the, even the river that goes through Henry Horton, the duck river, this is found on nature.org. It says the duck river is widely considered North America's Rich's river in variety of freshwater animals. So you've got something for your fishermen, you've got something for your kayakers, you have something for your birdwatchers. Yeah, absolutely. I saw this thing when I was younger, like animals you would see in nature. It was like this little book and you just Mark it off. So if like you're into watching animals, like you can see animals. Like I, the last time I was at the duck river, I saw alders have, I saw, I've seen some beavers at the duck river. Like, it's amazing just being able to watch the different animals.
32:54 Yeah. and before I forget there are actually some waterfall tours. This is incredible. Let's talk about this. Yeah. There are some waterfall tours that are being offered in the Tennessee state parks system. And you know, if you go to the Tennessee state parks website and click on events, like, and of course we'll have this in our show notes, but you know, there's so many things to do, so many guided hikes. So like hog Raphie tours, photography tours, this is our fall tour. It takes you across the, what we talked about early to Tennessee's Highland rim and Cumberland plateau. Cumberland plateau, naturally a nationally known for the cascades, the gorgeous rock houses, waterfalls nested along the lush forest lands. Tours include legends and folklore and other educational and interpretive programs unique to each location. Most meals and transportation during the tour.
33:49 So they have a 2019 October waterfall tour. That's October 2nd to the fourth and a 2019 November waterfall tour. And that is November 1st through the third. And this is based out of Cumberland mountain state park, but you will go and enjoy all of the different waterfalls that make Tennessee unique. Looks like it includes fall Creek, falls state park, Piney falls, lost Creek, ozone falls, black mountain state, natural area. I think if the, the October ones and November ones are a little bit different, so I'll make sure you click and see which one you wanna do think they take you on a little bit different to her based off the time of year. But I thought that was just something so amazing and probably very unique to Tennessee. When wouldn't you?
34:39 I don't, I don't. Absolutely. I don't know. I don't know anywhere, any other state that has that type of tours. Another thing we haven't talked about is the lakes. A lot of these state parks have lakes, so I'm thinking of Egger Evans state park, which is about 60 miles away from Nashville. And that's part of center Hill Lake, which is the largest Lake in state Tennessee. And man, they ha, they just have like these cool things. They there's ones called canoe the cannery and they do haunted cannery, like they do hung it like trips starting in [inaudible] your Edmunds. Yeah. I want to do this too. The Caney the Caney river. Yep. And it starts at Agora Evans state park. And this is a different organization, but like a lot of outdoor companies have built their businesses based on being close to a Tennessee state park. Oh. And so this one's really cool. It's called canoe, the Caney, and it's a haunted canoe Tor. So that one was just really cool and like they just, the Lake, so you have center Hill, Lake, you have Tims, Ford Lake, you have lakes all throughout the state of Tennessee, and they're absolutely amazing. So if like you're into boating, you could do that. If you're into fishing, you can do that. If you're into birdwatching, you could do that. And we've talked about this, what you can do a Henry Horton, you could do this at all there
35:54 Six as well. Oh, absolutely. And the kind of, you know, put up a little bit of a, of a conclusion with this. We're, we're definitely going to talk about more state parks on an individual level, which we've talked about Radnor Lake. Yeah, we've talked to Radnor Lake and especially the ones that are closer to Nashville. But I just wanna mention this happened this year in 2019 and in may Tennessee state parks was named a finalist for a national gold metal award with the American Academy for park and recreation administration on partnership with the national park recreation and park association. And this is, I think, just absolutely amazing for the Tennessee state parks. In this article, it gives a little bit of a paragraph as to maybe why this is the case. It says, Tennessee state parks is one of only two state park systems in the nation to receive accreditation through the commission for accreditation of park and recreation agencies. In recent years, the state has also acquired significant acres for protection. All park Rangers are certified interpretive guides and every park has expanded sustainability practices including adding more recycling bins and composting food waste. Tennessee state parks continues to celebrate record visitation and is only one of seven state parks systems that do not charge an admission fee.
37:21 Oh, we did not talk about that. Every single Tennessee state park is free, which makes it amazing. The only other two, there's only two other States I know of that are free. Pennsylvania and New York. I think Washington is too, but are seven by. That's a very small list. I went to one, I went to Florida last year. I had to pay $9 to get in to their state park. I'm like, what? $9? Like that's not a lot of money, but when you're used to a park system that's absolutely incredible. That's for free and having to go pay $9 to potentially go look at Gators like come on. Like seriously. I know you're just like, I just wanted to see some Gators. I didn't really want to pay money to have to do that. I just wanted to see a Gator and see if I can wrangle it. But that's different story. Aaron, what is, what's your closing thoughts about just highlighting the Tennessee state? They parks.
38:09 So the Tennessee state parks I think is something that if you are in Nashville or if you're thinking about adding something to your itinerary or your list of things to do in this, in this city or in this area, especially middle Tennessee and you haven't considered a state park to be part of your itinerary. Absolutely. at least if, if you're not an outdoors person, attempt to find a state park that may have an activity that you would like to, to see and just go visit a state park that may have a lot of family friendly activities or activities like tennis or basketball or swimming. And, and a lot of these places, if you just want to relax and you don't want to go outdoors and hike, you can always stay in their cabins and you can always eat at their, their lodges, in their restaurants. So you don't have to even have like either like they even have like snack shacks. Yeah, absolutely. And so you don't have to be completely outdoors to enjoy a Tennessee state park. And I think that's the message that I, I want to leave with is even as somebody who may not be an outdoors person, Tennessee state parks can be an absolute blast to know. One of the biggest surprises when we went to fall Creek falls is they is they like that snack shack you mentioned, they had an amazing snack shack that just looks like
39:30 Ice cream and burgers and beer and like man, it was local Tennessee brew and it was great right next to an Amphitheatre. So like they have the live music, they're like some bluegrass and folk guys come and play live music. Like yeah, you can just go enjoy a beer and listen to live music in a park and then it's incredible. It's amazing.
39:49 Yeah, it really is. What a, sir, what are your kind of final thoughts for making the case for, you know, why anybody may want to add the Tennessee state parts to their fall itinerary?
40:00 I think it's basically just adding onto what Aaron just said. You don't have to be an outdoors person to experience a Tennessee state park. You could be a horseback rider and UK experience cause they have horseback trails throughout the parks. You could be a person who has a, a modified Jeep that wants to do some back mountain Hill climbing. They have that in Tennessee state parks. You if you want them to learn how to shoot some guns, they have that with proper training. Henry Horton. So this is, they offer a lot of education and the history behind the parks and every individual park is incredible and we're going to cover that deeper in the future. But also just you don't have to be an outdoors person to experience it. And some of these state parks, it is about fall season, have incredible fall foliage and you definitely don't have to be out or person to enjoy that.
40:52 No. So, even if you're the person who just wants some beautiful fall pictures somewhere Tennessee state parks are probably the first place that you need to go to, to look up some of these, these places that would look amazing in some pictures. So yeah, we're, we're, like we said, we're going to hit up more Tennessee state parks in detail later on in Nashville daily. But hopefully that gives you a good overview of the Tennessee state parks and hopefully we've made a good case for you to just add that to your itinerary this fall.
41:24 Make it, I would say make it their priority to experience a Tennessee state park. You don't have to experience all of them. Just a park, a state park. All right. Nashville daily podcast. Make sure to go follow us on Instagram at X PLR dot. Nash last week we came out with a YouTube video of top restaurants in 2019 later this week, we were coming out with Plaza mariachi, which we talked about in the event that's happening there on Sunday. And what's our Instagram handle?
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