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| Cumberland Falls, KY is one of two places in the world that produces a lunar rainbow known as the moonbow. |
One thing I find sad about the high gas prices is it limits the American tradition of the road trip. What more symbolizes American freedom than the road trip? Of course with higher gas prices, Americans are staying home, which means they aren't driving American highways as much discovering places they may not have known about before hitting the open road.
I have found many of these places like the Cattawba Islands in Ohio near Put In Bay on Lake Erie. You see the signs and you leave the safety and comfort of the Interstate for windy back roads hoping the signs will ensure your arrival. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. I always find these places on the way home, because I don't find the place I live to be of any sort of beauty. I never understood the the fascination with Missouri's Ozark foothills. So, not wanting the vacation to end, I take the road less traveled in search of one last vista to give me that little extra bit of satisfaction.
Yesterday, after hiking up Mt. Le Conte in Tennessee, I decided to check out Cumberland Falls, the Niagara Falls of Dixie. Other than the trash that collects from upriver along its banks, Cumberland Falls is one impressive waterfall, falling 68 feet.
It's just outside the Corbin, Kentucky, home of the world famous Sander's Cafe, which you now know as KFC, on the Cumberland River. It's about 20 miles off of I-75.
Now Cumberland Falls just isn't an impressive waterfall. It has a rare claim to fame. On clear nights, when the moon is full, the moonlight creates a rare moonbow, which is a lunar rainbow. I didn't stick around to witness it, but pictures at the visitor center show this rare phenomenon.
Here are the wicked upper waters just before the falls. You definitely don't want to fall in around here.
