Big Fork Campground

Allardt, Tennessee

This is the second stop on our tour of the Tennessee Appalachian Mountains…South Big Fork, Big Fork, and then East Fork. I had planned on staying somewhere else, but Sandy, the owner, reached out and said there was a big event this weekend called the “Rock’N Ride” and I couldn’t resist the offer.

The weekend included a couple of group rides, a food truck on Friday and a big pot luck on Saturday. It was fun to hang out with other equestrians since we spend a lot of time just to ourselves. Rob, Sandy’s husband, made two turkeys and a ham. Folk in Tennessee do not mess around when it comes to food. One woman came in carrying a tray of deviled eggs and people were grabbing them off the tray as she walked from the barn entrance to the table.

In case you are wondering, someone filled a used milk plastic jug with sweet tea they made themselves.

I heard a lot of stories about moonshining and raising marijuana. Apparently, there are some Tennessee mountain people who still make their living making moonshine and have also expanded into growing marijuana as well. I heard a lot of the same issues as we have in the Santa Cruz Mountains and in Humboldt County where people will grow on public land using generators to pump water and sleeping by the grow fields to protect their crops. I have never tasted moonshine and now I want to try and track some down before we leave the area just to see what it tastes like.

Most of the people who came in for the weekend were locals. I think we were the only ones out of the area. Two of the campers were grooming their horses using a leaf blower. I had never seen this. I have seen people use clippers. That is fairly common, especially in dressage and racing to shave a horse’s coat down to reduce drag and make them look “prettier”. I have seen people use a small dust devil vacuum to vacuum up the dirt and grit as well as hair, especially during shedding season. However, this was a new one on me. The horses didn’t seem to mind it and I guess it would be similar to getting a blow out, but I wonder about how it would affect their hearing over time. We used ear protection on our horses when we did cowboy mounted shooting and I can’t imagine that a leaf blower would be less damaging than gun fire

Ari rode one day with the group and had a fine time. The next day we did the local trail together on our own. The trails were muddy, but not too bad.

Overall, the ride was uneventful and pretty. Both horses went barefoot and did just fine.

The horses got a large paddock area with grass and a run in shed. I think both horses might be putting on a little weight since they have had access to grass for 24/7 for the past week. We had full hook-up and a very lovely campsite. The campground has 5G WIFI which is super fast. There is a fridge in the barn where you can store food as well. Sandy also has a couple of rental trailers available, so you can rent a trailer to explore the area instead of hopping from one campground to the next.

We couldn’t resist buying a couple of their shirts. Ari and I each got one. They should sell these on-line as they are fabulous.

Overall, this is a lovely campground with great hosts.