I am sitting by the lake, watching Vicky starting dinner. Our campfire is burning close-by. The lake is 20 feet from us. It is so very quiet and serene. My part of making dinner was getting out the camp stove, attaching the propane, and getting the danged lighter to work. (getting the lighter to work is half of the work of a meal, so don’t knock it—they are made to be so child proof that they are sometimes impossible to get lit). I also built the camp fire, and obtained the wood and fire starter. I’m not completely lazy when it comes to our division of labor, even though sometimes it seems like that to me.
We are at Natchez Trace State Park in Tennessee. It was not our first choice of a place to stay last night, but the campground where we had intended to stay just didn’t “feel” right. It didn’t feel unsafe or anything, but it felt cramped, dark, and unexciting. So, after a long day of driving our choices were to go ahead and stay there anyway, or travel another three hours to a place we knew nothing about and take our chances. We decided to take our chances, and learned something—which is don’t settle for places that are unexciting. Take your chances.
After driving for three more hours we found a TERRIFIC campsite by the lake. Very quiet and secluded. A couple of neighbors in pop-ups, but we are miles away from the open field in this park where the RVZillas have to stay. Once again our choice of a rig worked in our favor—larger ones could not navigate the sharp turns to get to where we are. We are in a small loop where all the sites back up to the lake. It is so amazingly peaceful.
We took the lake hike today—supposedly 4 miles, but actually much longer. Took us 4 ½ hours moving at a real good pace (at least 2.4 mph). It was a real nice woodland hike. Sometimes we had beautiful views of the lake and of the fall colors. Best we could estimate, based on time, our GPS readings, and the description of the hike, was that we did 9 miles with about 1000 foot elevation gain. No wonder we are tired.
Tree fungi of some type. Very large and beautiful. Never seen them before this large and this colorful. One of these was over two feet long!
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Those mushrooms are chicken-of-the-woods. Yum yum. Great sauteed in butter or in an omelet or over pasta. Only fresh ones, though--they get woody after a while.
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