Back to Tennessee

Well, we've been off the grid for a while, having stopped at home to recharge our batteries, attend to some family business and tear down the brick fireplace thing in our living room (don't ask). But we're back on the road now after visiting Stacy and Monte and Janine and Joel in North Carolina (sincere thanks to both couples for putting up with us and our pups for the time we spent at their places!).

We first stopped in Tennessee north of Knoxville in a little town called Morristown where we stayed at the Panther Creek State Park and found a very large family reunion and a full campground. Nice place! And lots of hiking trails to visit. We managed to inadvertently walk a lot farther on one of the trails than we meant to (this is typical for us, just ask Joel), and though we thought we were taking a short cut, we were actually scaling the only trail in the park rated 'difficult'. Nice. On Sunday, we visited Marble Springs State Historic Site where John Sevier lived. Sevier was Tennessee's first governor and he served 6 terms. The historic site offered examples of log structures from the 1790's through the 1820's, very interesting.

Picture from Ramsey House Plantation website

Next we headed a few miles away to the Ramsey House Plantation, the first stone home built in eastern Tennessee. The house, despite being built in 1797, still maintains ALL the original wood moldings, floors, banister and fireplace mantles. The home was sold out of the Ramsey family at some point in the early 20th century and then used as a rental home and then as a hay barn(!) until it was purchased by the APTA (Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities) in 1952. The fact that the wood moldings and floors withstood renters and being used as a barn is a miracle, but it also never had running water or electricity ever installed either. Evidently, it was also never attacked by Indians nor did it ever catch fire (typical of most of the other homes of that time period). It was a fascinating tour!

Turtles and ducks

On Monday, we left Panther Creek and drove through an amazing amount of rain to get to Bledsoe Creek State Park near Nashville. Oddly and interestingly, in the first 24 hours of arriving here, we've seen more wildlife than we saw in all of New England combined. We've seen ducks, egrets, a heron, 7 big box turtles, countless deer and squirrels, and a bunch of wild turkeys. The turkeys are very entertaining to watch, especially when there's 10 of them crowded around the RV picking at the ground. But they turn downright hilarious when they run. They'll stick their necks out and then take off running like raptors with no arms. They look ridiculous. We set off for a hike this morning and found them scattered up a hill off the trail running away from the sound of us huffing and puffing our way up a steep incline. We haven't seen them since...can't say I blame them, we must have looked and sounded rather menacing. I'll try to get a picture of them before we leave...

Just a duck, people, don't get excited. Not a turkey.

Pal of the other duck. They're never apart.