This is my post for the Scenic Sunday meme, which shares beautiful scenes from around the world. To see more Scenic Sunday posts, or to join and post your own pictures, click HERE.
Betsy and I like to travel on back roads whenever possible — we see much more of America that way. But our recent trip to Texas involved such long distances that we asked our GPS to take us by the quickest route, even though we knew that would mean mostly going on the interstate highways.
We’ve stopped at some fairly nice rest areas on the interstate, although I would not call most of them scenic. But on this trip we got a real surprise — a rest area that is actually scenic.
The picture above was taken at the rest area on I-24 near Chattanooga. The rest area is on an island in Lake Nickajack on the Tennessee River. The lake is formed by Nickajack Dam, a hydroelectric dam near Jasper Tennessee. Nickajack Dam is one of nine dams on the Tennessee River owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The name Nickajack comes from a Cherokee village which once stood just upstream from the dam site.







