Cumberland (You can miss this - it is just info)

Cumberland is a name which crops up a lot in this part of the world.
The Cumberland River, starts and runs along the north and west side of the Cumberland Plateau.
The Cumberland Plateau is an area of uplands about 2000 square miles in central Tennessee and southern Kentucky. Though lower than the Appalachians it is between 1200 and 1500 feet high, deeply cut by many rivers, mostly feeding via tributaries like the Duck River, North or West into the central section of the Cumberland River.
The Cumberland Falls is a waterfall on the river, in central southern KY.
Cumberland Lake is a large reservoir to the west of London in KY.
Cumberland Gap. The Cumberland River actually rises at Cumberland Gap, about 30 miles East of the Falls,
Cumberland Gap is on the border between KY and TN and is on the watershed between the Norris River, which runs into the Clinch River, which joins the TN River south West of Knoxville. It is famous because it was one of the best places to cross over from the East to the West.
The biggest town in the Cumberland Gap area is a town called Middlesboro, which is famous for having been built in an old meteor crater, though I am afraid that we did not have time to visit it.
However the Cumberland River winds north and west, then south for about a hundred miles or so, before turning north again as it passes over the Cumberland Falls.
There are many towns called Cumberland in the USA, though there is not one in TN surprisingly
Cumberland County is a county a little to the west of Knoxville, which has Crossville as its regional centre.

The Tennessee River marks the eastern edge of the Cumberland Plateau, but takes very little water from it. The Tennessee River takes most of the water from the Southern Appalachians, (including the Cullasaja River we had watched flooding a week ago), its watershed stretches into Virginia to the North, just about gets into Georgia, via the Little Tennessee River and almost to Bowing Rock and past Ashville to the East. However, at the Cumberland Falls the Cumberland River flows north, then swings west down to Nashville, where it continues west to meet the Tennessee River as one side of the Land Between the Lakes. The other side is the Tennessee River, which then very quickly runs into the Ohio River.