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It’s been months since I posted to this blog. While most businesses have suffered since the outset of Covid, the Falls at Sewanee Creek is booming. Guests are finding it’s a perfect place to breath fresh air, safely distanced and inspired by nature.
But, for me, No time left for blogging.
Meanwhile, Several big changes
We finished and opened the Glamper (aka the Glamping Tent). It’s been an immediate hit. A serene location with a view overlooking Miller’s Falls and cascades in the canyon below.We added a couple more sites that have also become extremely popular.
The Trampease Tree Tent has been described as unique, creative, even whimsical. I think it’s completely original, although inspired by pictures of tents from Pinterest like this one from Tentsile, suspended from trees and a platform tent with a sheltered living space and a camp table below.
I like creating my own from repurposed materials and combining diverse ideas into something new. So, I incorporated the below-tent camping area into a trampoline suspended high in the trees.
I had previously built what I now call my first generation trampoline tent (Yurtle) on a trampoline with a satellite dish roof.
So, I had some experience with trampoline tents.
This time, I wanted to put a larger trampoline up in the trees. Trampease is gen-2. Check out its page on this website.
The latest creation is an Outdoor Kitchen. This time, necessity was the mother of invention. We blocked most of our places for my sister’s large extended family reunion. Guess that makes her the Mother of Invention.
We needed a place to gather, cook, eat and socialize around the campfire. So, I staked out a place in the primitive camping area between Yurtle, the Firepit and the outhouse. I used several large trees for corner posts and added one post on a corner where there was no tree to support the roof. Finished the roof structure in a couple of days. Next, I hooked up a water line from the house, added a commercial stainless sink, a water heater, propane barbecue and range with a griddle.
I had already built a unique camping table with fold-down leaves around a pickup truck tool chest. The kitchen turned out to be the perfect place for it with its ample internal, sheltered storage for all the cooking gear, dishes and utensils needed outdoors. At that stage, the kitchen was a bit rough, with dirt floors, but served our purposes well. The reunion was a smashing success and the kitchen was the perfect place for the extended family to gather.
After it was all over, I hired a father-son team of local artisans to lay a stone floor in the kitchen. The ”finished” product is beautiful. We have hosted friends, other family, neighbors and guests there since it was completed in July. It seems though, that nothing I build is ever really finished, Some day, I want to build a stone pizza oven there, but that will have to wait for some other priorities.
I’m not the only one in our family with a creative bent for building stuff. It’s just in our DNA.
Some of us gathered in the pool at the bottom of the falls to deepen it. We hauled large boulders out by hand and stacked them to create a dam. Physical, enjoyable work, as we waded in the cold water during the June heat. Nathan is an avid rappeler who loves using heavy ropes and pulleys to engineer moving heavy things. He hooked up his AWD Subaru at the top of the bluff to a pulley system hooked to trees and moved some truly monstrous multi-ton boulders at the bottom of the falls. He succeeded in yanking a couple of them out of the bottom with satisfying results. The effort ended with a snapped line and a promise to come back later and finish deepening the pool.
Nathan and Donovan also provided physical muscle to level a huge, flat boulder exactly under the main stream of the waterfall. A great time was had by all. In the ensuing summer months, many guests have enjoyed dipping in the pool or showering, soap-less in the waterfall. One of my personal favorite activities is relaxing on the bench at the top of the falls while listening for screams as new guests brave the initial shocking chill of falling water.
My most time-consuming summer project has been with software. With the added venues and chock-a-block reservations, we were losing control. It’s been a mind-numbing struggle to get Cloudbeds (a booking management platform) to play nicely with Airbnb, VRBO and Hipcamp.
We recently went live with direct online booking from this website. Eliminating the middle-men reduces booking costs to our guests.
Still working out the kinks, so please be patient with us. If, like me, you enjoy relaxing on a bench to listen for screams, you might sit on our front porch as I attempt to untangle software complexities.
Thankfully, the struggles are all worthwhile. We are grateful to live in a wide-open place with waterfalls and hundreds of acres of trails that we can share with wonderful people, both old friends and new. We are hardly aware of the stresses of big cities and the ravages of pandemics and social unrest. Life is good at the Falls at Sewanee Creek in the South Cumberland Mountains.
Contact Information:
Phone: (931) 450-2426 | (931) 450-2426(931)
Email: Grant@TNwaterfallGetaway.com
Location: Browns Hollow Rd, Tracy City, TN 37387, United States of America