After our tour of the Parthenon, we headed west to the Nathan Bedford Forest State Park. This park is a great little park with some excellent campsites right on the western edge of Lake Kentucky (Tennessee River, but a flooded section). We arrived in time for ‘Willow Fly’ season and there were *thousands* of them flying, landing, mating and dying in place. Luckily, or unluckily depending on your point of view, we were also in for a record setting deluge which aside from marvelling the locals with creeks flooding and a cell tower being blown over, also washed away the last remains of the Willow Flies. We knew the storm was coming and we had set up to weather it, so aside from getting personally soaked (I was outside making sure we were OK, of course), the inside of our tent stayed dry and we had shelter in the dining tent so we could ‘enjoy’ the rain. My son was driven from the tent to the car overnight due to some leaks in his small tent but also by the tremendous lightning flashes and the roar of the rain.

The park is the site of a small (but successful) engagement by Nathan Bedford Forest — The Wizard of the Saddle (the Union called him ‘That Devil, Forest”). There is a monument atop a large hill in the middle of the park. A photo of the monument and some early dawn pictures of our camp are below: