Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS streaks across the night sky, as seen from our front porch.
Several others have posted photos of this comet with a very long name on social media and elsewhere lately, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and take my own photo, too. I am not always a bandwagon jumper, but I decided to be for this occasion.
For one of our Summer of Fun 2024 adventures, we stayed in a small cabin in West Tennessee. Here’s a look!
The front porch light gave off a welcoming glow, and there was a fire watchtower in the background. And the moon, too.
Now for the backstory. In the spring, Laura and I attended the Taste and Tunes fundraiser for Harding Academy. They gave away prizes, and one of the prizes was a 2-night stay at Serendipity near Brownsville, Tennessee. And we won the drawing! So we picked a time that worked for us, which ended up being in early August. We had a nice, small cabin to ourselves, and it was good.
Looking out from the overlook over Fall Creek Falls Fall Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee.
From this angle, and in a two-dimensional photograph, it is difficult to judge the size of the waterfalls here. So I suggest you see the previous Fall Creek Falls post that includes photos from the bottom of the falls to help you get a better feeling of the size of these falls.
Rushing water pours over the rocks at the middle falls at Burgess Falls State Park in Tennessee, from our Tennessee Waterfalls trip.
At Burgess Falls State Park, there are actually three falls and some cascades along the Falling Water River. The photo in the first Burgess Falls post was of the lower falls, which are the largest in height. The water that you see here in this photo is headed to the lower falls next.
As you may remember from an earlier post, we saw the aurora borealis, or northern lights, from our home in Tennessee on May 10, 2024, as did many other people all across the United States. While that first post featured photos of the more “traditional” aurora borealis look, that look did not last all that long. However, the sky still put on a great show for quite a while. Have a look at these photos! Not to bore(alis) you, but there are several of them!
Rushing water roars over Great Falls on the Caney Fork River at Rock Island State Park in Tennessee, another park that we visited on our Tennessee Waterfalls trip.
The horseshoe-shaped Great Falls was a fascinating sight, as the rushing water appeared to be quite turbulent, creating a loud roar as it fell. The falls were so wide that I could not fit them into one photo, so here is another view:
The aurora borealis, or northern lights, shine over the skies of Southwest Tennessee during their North American visibility on May 10, 2024.
You have most likely seen by now that the aurora borealis was visible into the southern United States, thanks to a major geomagnetic storm due to solar flares and coronal mass ejections. That all sounds like I know what I am talking about, doesn’t it? Yes, the sun spewed out some plasma, which made its way to earth, causing geomagnetic storms. While these storms can sometimes disrupt things like communications and power systems, they also do some nice things to the aurora, like what you see in the photo above. But just one photo will not do, so here is another:
Looking out over the waterfall down below at Cummins Falls State Park in Tennessee during our Tennessee Waterfalls trip.
It is difficult to judge the height of these waterfalls, but this one is 75 feet tall, which to me is a pretty good size, because, as I have mentioned before, we don’t have waterfalls of any size near where we live. You can at times access the base of the falls. However, it requires a permit, strenuous hiking, wading through water, and climbing and crossing slippery rocks. Besides all of that, the gorge trail was closed on the day that we were there because of all the rain that had come through before our visit. But that is okay, because we still enjoyed the view from the overlook.
Water rushes over the tallest waterfall at Burgess Falls State Park in Tennessee, as seen during our Tennessee Waterfalls trip.
Burgess Falls was the first of four Tennessee State Parks that we visited on our Waterfalls trip, and it was worth the visit. We walked along the trail that runs alongside the appropriately-named Falling Water River. Could there be a better name for a river with waterfalls? I can’t think of one. Maybe Waterfall River, but that does not sound as good as Falling Water River.
