Wayne Davis plunged into retirement with a frothy plan to see, as he put it, “100 waterfalls in 100 Days.”
“I got serious about waterfalls—maybe a hike a month or a hike a week during the summer—about seven years ago,” says Davis, 68, of Kingsport, Tennessee.
But, upon retirement as a systems analyst at Kingsport’s Eastman Chemical Co. in 2023, Davis opted to accelerate the adventure.
On Day One, he landed at Linville Falls in North Carolina, on April 1. Davis further found falls called Rainbow, Stairway and Drift—all in North Carolina.
Venturing to Virginia, he explored the many Falls of Little Stony near Coeburn. “I was just amazed at how pretty those falls were,” Davis says.
Davis’s 100th was Laurel Falls near Elizabethton, Tennessee—about an hour from Kingsport.
“It was really pretty. I saw it in July,” he says, “and there was not a single car in the parking lot.”
Virtually all of them were day trips,” Davis says of his 100/100. “We are really blessed with beautiful waterfalls in the area.”
Davis posted motion shots and videos to a Facebook site. He has also since racked up another dozen falls beyond the original 100.
“It’s really fun to have a set goal and work toward that goal. But, of course, the actual hike was always the most fun,” Davis says. “Waterfalls, they are just amazing. You can watch them—the sound, the green algae, the plants. It’s just a real experience. ”
The story above first appeared in our January / February 2024 issue.
