Middle Tennessee enjoyed several pop up thunderstorms on Thursday with several earth drenching deluges. Orion and I had originally discussed heading to Cedars of Lebanon to try out two or three of their shorter, level easy trails as a warm up. But the rains promised spectacular waterfalls so I turned to the Hiking Waterfalls in Tennessee book that had arrived in the mail just days before to find a few, short hikes within an hour or two of home. Find them I did. Orion and I decided we would head to Summertown and start with Stillhouse Hollow Falls. It's only 3 miles, Mr. Molloy reported. It's an "easy" trek the book confirmed. And the falls' beauty was rated 4 out of 5. So off we headed in hopes we would hit Fall Hollow Falls and Jackson Falls on the Natchez Trace on the way back home! 
While Stillhouse Hollow Falls was worth every ache in my long ignored muscles and the thought I might not make it back up the steeper parts of the trail, it did knock the starch out of my britches. We spent just over two hours. The trip down took about 40 minutes and the return trip took about 50 minutes, with lots of huffing and puffing. There is a shorter, but lovely falls about half way down. Stillhouse Hollow Falls itself is quite lovely. The temperature is about 7 to 10 degrees cooler at the base. The water tumbles off the rock face into a shallow (about 12 to 18 inches deep) pool. Would I bring the family? Yes? Could they spend hours enjoying flipping rocks in shallow water looking at snails, frogs, tadpoles, and crawdads? Totally! It may be a while before I make the 2 hour trip back this way, but I plan to return to Stillhouse Hollow Falls for each season.
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