Tennessee 9-8

Yesterday we left Kentucky around 10:00. We drove 123 miles on Interstate 75 to Heiskell, Tennessee, just north of Knoxville. We got in here around 1:00 and waited a half hour for the office to open up so we could get checked in. We are in an Escapees park. This one allows non-members in for some reason. $13 a day for full hook-ups and $1 a day for cable. (my “corrections officer” pointed out that in Kentucky we did not have full hook-ups, we did not have sewer). The sites here are really tight and we weren’t sure about our satellite shot, but as you can see, we got it.

Tennessee is really beautiful. Hilly and heavily forested with many kinds of deciduous trees with a few evergreens thrown in! Hard to get pictures that are any good because there weren’t any places to pull out on the interstate and then it was pretty hazy. You’ll just have to take my word for it if you have never seen it and will have to plan to see it for yourselves someday!

We got set up and then just relaxed. It is amazing how exhausting catching up on 10 years was! We spent the first couple weeks in the past and then the rest of the time in our childhoods and then working our way up to the present! Lori and I talk on the phone and have stayed in touch, but apparently not very well, cause we had TONS to catch up on.

So anyway, after dinner we took a walk through the woods. The sun had sunk below the hill here and we figured it would be cooler. It was but it was dimmer in there than we expected! We were a little concerned about mosquitoes but didn’t see a one. We did see some interesting fungi and “‘shrooms”. At one point after I walked through a spider web and untangled myself from it and fought off the massively HUGE spider (in my imagination of course) I made Larry go first. I seem to have a knack for seeing creatures that are trying to hide (like that sleeping rattlesnake under the bush that Larry walked by in New Mexico) and I saw this turtle snuggled down in the leaves backed up to a fungi. We weren’t sure if it was just a shell until Larry moved a leaf and we saw its little leg, which immediately got tucked inside. So we left it to its nap and carried on up the trail. It is amazing how noisy the insects are around here. It is noisier at night than during the day!

We had forgotten that Tennessee has a lot of mines. While we were standing around waiting for the office to open we heard a siren (we thought fire department) when all of a sudden the ground shook and there was an enormous explosion and then you could hear debris raining down and then a dust cloud rose up into the air. It was only a quarter mile or so from us, but it reminded us about the mines right quick!

We will only stay here through the weekend. We thought we might stay a week, but we have a rude neighbor so we will move on. The beauty of this lifestyle. When you are this close together consideration goes a long way. He had his music cranked up for an hour or so, and then at 4 a.m. he and a couple buddies were standing outside talking in regular voices which is really loud in the middle of the night! Morning to some of you but to us when sleeping…the middle of the night!

Gotta go check out the local area! Ta-Ta for now....