Ten Family Things to Do Around Mt. Juliet This Week
The fair is here, which more or less settles the week. But if you need something between fair nights — or something free — here are ten things worth doing with kids around Mt. Juliet and Wilson County between Thursday and next Wednesday.
1. The fair opens Thursday and runs ten days
The Wilson County Fair – Tennessee State Fair takes over the James E. Ward Agricultural Center in Lebanon from Thursday through Saturday the 22nd. Admission is $5 to $14 depending on age and children five and under are free. Gates open at 4 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m. Saturday and noon Sunday, with more than sixty rides, livestock shows, motorsports and music on six stages. Weeknights are calmer than the weekend if you have small kids and a bedtime to protect.
Wilson County Fair – Tennessee State Fair →
2. The Annual Greenway Walk, Thursday
The city's organized walk on the greenway starts at Charlie Daniels Park and costs nothing. If you have been meaning to figure out the trail system, this is the easiest possible on-ramp — somebody else has already worked out where you park and which way you go.
Annual Greenway Walk →
3. Charlie Daniels Park
The default answer for a reason: playground, ballfields, walking paths and the splash pad in season. All free. Splash pad hours move around with the calendar this time of year, so check before you promise water.
4. Long Hunter State Park
The Couchville Lake loop is paved, flat and stroller-friendly, with a lake breeze that makes August tolerable. Free, and short enough that a four-year-old can finish it on their own legs.
5. Cedars of Lebanon State Park
Deep cedar shade, a nature center, and the limestone sinks and glades that kids find genuinely strange in the best way. Entry is free; the pool is separate and ticketed.
6. Don Fox Community Park, Lebanon
Free, easy, and best in the last hour of daylight when the fountain catches the light. Good playground, good loop, nothing you have to plan.
7. The Percy Priest dam overlook
Free day-use, big water views, and herons picking their way along below the dam. It takes twenty minutes and buys you a surprising amount of goodwill with a kid who likes big machinery.
8. The Mt. Juliet greenway, any morning
The Town Center trail is at its best before about nine, when it is still shaded and the stroller crowd has it to themselves. Free, flat, and close enough that it does not count as an outing — which is the point.
9. Drakes Creek Park, Hendersonville
Worth the drive around the lake: playgrounds, ballfields and the particular energy of a park in the evening when three games are going at once. Free.
10. The Stones River greenway
The Donelson-to-Percy-Priest stretch is shaded, paved and runs along the river — a good morning ride for a kid who has just graduated to a bike without training wheels. Free.
Dates and times change. Confirm with the organizer before you load the car.
