Harrison Bay State Park - Harrison, Tennessee (October 2022)

Why not head north to the Tennessee mountains in Rosie, our Airstream trailer, during October to enjoy the beauty of the leaves changing colors? That question started a conversation about taking another trip to the Smokies and we called the campground we stayed in the previous year to book a site. Yes, they had some open sites, but their rates shot up to more than $140 per night. 

Wow! That price tag convinced us to look at other campground possibilities during that time span. There were several Tennessee State Parks that we wanted to visit and this was an opportunity to explore them. We made our reservations, loaded Rosie and started out on a new adventure. 

Harrison Bay State Park wasn’t on our list of “must visit “ parks. It was simply a convenient stop on our way to our top choices.  Having said that, the park was a pleasant surprise. 

Sign at the entrance of the park

We noticed a sign that said this was Tennessee's first state park and was created with the help of the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps, a federal agency created during the Great Depression to put people to work on public projects) in 1937.  That helped to explain some of the “issues” with this park. 

The CCC was involved in building this park

For example, the roads were surprisingly narrow there. Well, no one had huge trucks and fifth wheel trailers back in the 1930s. 

Rosie in our site

View from Rosie's window

Another point we noticed was that most campsites in the B and C loops would make KOAs envious at how many RVs were packed into a small area. That probably made sense in the 1930s as people mostly used tents back then, which require less space than the big rigs of today. 

Selfie near our site

Rosie from across the lake

Then there is the layout of this park. Perhaps the best way to describe it is “unique.” It appeared to me that the CCC was stronger on doing things than creating an overall plan before starting this project. The paths of some roads and the locations of some things defy logic and scream that this park wasn’t designed with trailers and motorhomes in mind. 

I don’t want to give the impression that this is a park to avoid. We were fortunate in that our site was on the lake and had great water and sunset views. Plus, the quirkiness of this park made it interesting to explore on our bicycles.  

We haven't seen a sign like this at other campgrounds

Speaking of bicycles, we didn’t find any designated bike trails, but the roads around the park were great for bike rides. 

We were amazed at the number of deer spotted in multiple locations in this park. Some of our neighbors talked about raccoons, but we didn’t see any. 

Deer in the park

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There were multiple loops in the campground. Some loops appeared to us to have better camping sites than others
• Our site was a back in
• Our site could be classified as "full sun" as we had a waterfront site
• Some sites had some space on both sides while others were very close. Our site had sufficient space on one side of Rosie and close to our neighbors on the other side 
• Our site was paved with asphalt and we needed to use leveling tools to correct a side-to-side lean in Rosie. There were several sites in the B and C loops that I felt it would be impossible to level both side-to-side and front-to-back
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection
• Our site did not have a sewer connection 
• There were several dump stations in this park. The dump site closest to Rosie was poorly located because the sewer connection was on the wrong side. If you followed the “one way” road signs, you would have to run your sewer hose underneath your RV to dump. That prompted most people to ignore the traffic signs in the park
• There were several trash dumpsters located in the camping loops. It was easy to walk there with your trash
• There were multiple bathhouses in the campground 
• The park did provide WiFi service. We measured 1.05 mb down and 1.3 mb upload speeds. The park’s network authentication system required you to log back in multiple times a day
• AT&T provided 2 bars of 5G voice and data service over our campsite 
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were Bounce, Charge, Comet, Court-TV, Dabl, Get, Grit, ION, LAFF, ME-TV, MY-T, TBD and THiS
• There were restaurants and shopping nearby
• This was a pet friendly park 

This appeared to be a campground that local people really enjoy and support. We camped there during the local area’s public school's Fall Break and enjoyed seeing children play in the campground.