Eeeexxxxxcellent….

Wait.. no.. this is Montgomery BELL State Park in BURNS Tn.

This is a pretty neat park. Lots of mountain bike trails, hiking trails, and a creek right through the campground.

The kids spent a lot of time catching crawfish and climbing around in the creek. I caught a couple myself but I kept seeing this glass here and there in the stream and bank.

I thought it was volcanic, but after looking up the history of the park, it is slag glass from a furnace that was used before the Civil War. Basically, it’s the stuff that formed on top of the melted iron when they heated the ore and added other stuff to it. It was largely green, but I saw some purple and red too. It wasn’t sharp, really. If you smashed a piece, it was definitely broken glass. Sometimes you could even see marks in it from the tools the workers would use.

Another thing that was everywhere where crinoid fossils. You could find them in the stream, on the shore, on the hiking/biking trails… EVERYWHERE. It’s just like how I can get oyster fossils in my backyard every time I try to dig a hole.

But wait.. there is more. When I was in the park office, I discovered the greatest fact of all. This park was used as Kamp Kikakee in Ernest Goes To Camp!

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!! I totally bought a shirt!