Tennessee - Day 8

Warriors Path State Park
Friday, 8 November 2019

For some reason I kept thinking today was a Saturday, which made making plans more difficult.

I also woke up to a temp of 38° minus whatever the wind brought it down to.  I'd been expecting low 40s and there's a difference.

When I took the dogs out on their first walk, I saw a man getting his trailer ready to leave and said, "A little chilly this morning, huh?"  And he said he'd left Maine a few days ago to get ahead of the cold weather but obviously hadn't left soon enough.  He was off to Florida, I think.

Today I spent an hour or so packing up my tank tops and shorts and getting out a few of my winter clothes.  I decided to leave most of them packed for now, thinking this cold snap would give way to something closer to fall temperatures in a few days.  It never got above the mid-40s today but is expected to get near 60° tomorrow.

I spent most of the day trying to sort out my impressions of Pres. Andrew Johnson and write them down.  What I'd thought was a fairly straightforward situation turned out to have far more nuances than I'd ever expected.  But I guess wars and their aftermaths are always like that.  I've just never given it much detailed thought.

I also decided to stay here an extra night.  I'd planned to leave tomorrow but decided instead to go to Bristol, down the road a piece, and come back here another night.

This campground has closed off the majority of their campsite locations and we're left with a fairly small area.  This being a weekend, many of the spaces were taken but I saw lots of people packing up before their time was up - not prepared to be out in weather this cold maybe.

The campground is built on several steep hills, so the dogs and I are getting a lot more exercise than we usually do when we walk around campgrounds.  It's certainly good for us.

The RV was crawling with ladybugs on the outside, trying to find a way in.  Somehow they can squeeze between the window and the screen at one end, but fortunately they haven't figured out how to squeeze through the other end into the cabin.  I'm seriously beginning to see them as pests, which I'd never thought could happen.  Ladybugs are one of Tennessee's two official state insects, the firefly (aka lightning bug) being the other.  Not counting the honeybee (official state agricultural insect) and the Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly (official state butterfly, also an insect).