"Three hundred forty-one. Three hundred forty-two. Three hundred forty-three." Nico counted every step out loud on the way down into Tallulah Gorge, in the slow, serious voice he saves for the Junior Ranger oath. Somewhere past four hundred he and Maya got into a debate about whether a landing counts as a step, and the count was lost for good. He now tells people it was "a million and four."
We spent two nights at Tallulah Gorge State Park, June 18 to 20, in the middle of our summer loop, after four cool nights at Vogel. It was a short tow, about an hour and a half, and the site with water and electric cost $108 for both nights. Tallulah sits lower than Vogel and you can feel it: mid 80s in the afternoon, upper 60s at night and sticky enough that the camper AC earned its keep.
The bridge
The suspension bridge crosses the gorge high above the river and the rocks, and it moves. Not a lot, but enough. Maya stopped halfway, held the cable rail with both hands and said, "Okay, I'm done looking down." Nico bounced. I asked him to stop bouncing. He bounced more quietly.
I'll admit the bridge bothered me more than either kid. I'm fine on ladders and on the top row of the bleachers, but a walkway you can see through, with white water roaring underneath, made my palms sweat. Dana walked across holding Nico's hand, stopped once to take a single photo of the falls and kept going. That's how she does most things.
A lot of stairs
The stairs are the real workout. Metal staircases zigzag from the rim down to the bridge and on toward the bottom of Hurricane Falls, and every step down is a step you'll climb back up. I teach PE, so my kids have heard every speech I have about pacing, but this was the first time they believed it. Our stair rules:
- Start by 9 a.m., before the sun gets down into the gorge.
- A full water bottle per person, plus a spare in my black backpack.
- Stop at every landing on the way up, even if you feel fine.
- Hand on the rail when people pass.
- Going to the bottom is optional. Coming back up is not.
We went all the way to the platform at the base of the falls, where the spray felt like standing in front of an open refrigerator. Then we climbed. Nico made it up on his own legs, with one stop where he lay flat on a landing like a starfish and announced that his legs were "out of batteries." Maya, ten since May and very aware of it, kept a quiet count of the grown-ups we passed who looked more tired than she did. It was a lot of grown-ups.
And a lot of water
The rest of the water came from the sky. On our first afternoon I talked everyone into a walk along the rim trail to a couple of overlooks while a storm was building to the west. I was sure we had an hour. We had about twenty minutes. Our Frogg Toggs rain suits were folded neatly in the camper, which is where they stayed while the four of us jogged back to the Pilot soaked to the skin. Dana didn't say anything. She didn't need to.
The better water came the next afternoon. Once the daily storm cleared, we drove over to the park's lake, which has a small swimming beach, and the kids swam in water that felt cold after a month of Florida pools. Nico found a crayfish under a rock and named it before letting it go. Maya sat on the sand with her journal and drew the ridgeline. Back at the site the bed ends were still dripping from the storm, the whole camper smelled like wet canvas, and dinner was one of our last freezer meals warmed on the stove inside.
Would we go back?
Yes, for two nights, not more. Shade, bugs, bathroom: good tree cover over the sites, gnats that were mild compared with Skidaway last summer, and a bathhouse that was fine. The campground loops are tighter than Vogel's but much flatter, which the Pilot and I both appreciated after that hill.
Next time I'll check the radar before any rim walk, and the rain suits now hang on a hook by the camper door where I can't pretend I forgot them. When we pulled out after lunch on the 20th, Nico asked if we could come back "when my legs are seven." I told him we'd see. He'll hold me to it.
