Explore the Ellington Agricultural Center and / or Seven Mile Creek Greenway!

My kids and I headed to Ellington Agricultural Center which is a big 207-acre property about 10 miles south of downtown Nashville, near Crieve Hall, and is headquarters for the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, the Tennessee Agricultural Museum, and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. It is also a branch location for various other agencies.  Of note for tree lovers, the center is listed as an official arboretum by the Nashville Tree Foundation and is home to an official iris garden.

We walked the 2.4 mile Rogers Walk (2.4 miles includes the loop and a stretch of the greenway) and started from the Whitfield Park parking lot (note: Whitfield Playground is there and there is sometimes an ice cream truck during the summer months). 

You start on the paved path of Seven Mile Creek Greenway (the Greenway's paved path is 0.6 miles if all you want to do is scoot / bike).  If you want to do the Rogers Walk, you'll

• Start on the greenway paved path from Whitfield Park parking lot
• Go maybe 200 yards, and then take a right on the road that goes into the Agricultural Center
• Then take a quick left to get on the unpaved trail, which, by the way, is not doable for scooters / bikes
• You'll walk for less than half a mile and then are spit out into a parking lot (this is a bit weird and can be confusing) but keep heading across the parking lot (the way you've been spit out) and to the left of the large building up ahead (you'll know you've gone the right way if you see the old, preserved log cabins that are fun to explore.) 
• To continue on the walk, go behind the log cabins, and you'll see a sign for the "Iris Garden" and go that way.  You'll find yourself near a white gazebo. 
• To the right and up the hill, you'll see a lovely older home. 
• To keep going on the walk, continue across the lawn to the other side and you'll reconnect with the unpaved path.  Here the path is well marked from then on. 
• You'll pass by part of a creek and then past some gated agricultural buildings (stay to the right of the fence). 
• Continuing the loop, you'll then pass by a larger section of the creek, where there are a couple of entrance points.
• Go back to Whitfield Park via the paved path of the greenway

Again, it's not so much as a hike as a walk - it's not overly scenic and goes through a parking lot at one point and you can hear traffic much of the time - but I'm listing it here because of the following reasons:

1. It is flat and looped - always great with kids!

2. If you enter the Rogers Walk and go directly counter-clockwise, there are several access points to Seven Mile Creek almost immediately that my dogs and kids loved splashing around in (note: if you are doing the full walk, I recommend clockwise)

3. There are bathrooms on the loop - they are clean! (these are located less than a half mile in where you are spit out onto a parking lot)

4. There are some older, interesting log cabins that kids can explore in and play around

5. There is a lovely white gazebo and my kids played "princess" in it for a while (note: also a nice area for a picnic if we had packed one)

6. The Nashville Police Horses sleep here and you can often get up close to them

7. It's close to the city and specifically several great neighborhoods: Crieve Hall, Oak Hill, 12 South neighborhoods

All in all, it was an interesting, varied loop.  And we hit the Whitfield playground at the end :)