Last night was cooler than I thought it would be, my first chilly night for the fall! I ended up putting my clothes on and putting a travel sheet in my sleeping bag to warm up, but I was still rubbing my feet together! I really have to look into a warmer sleeping bag.

I woke up to this sight as the sun was rising, with a good chill to the air, a refreshing difference from the Texas heat.

And this was my camp site.

I got up early to pack up so I could hit the road for my next stop, which is a jeeper's house in central TN. The men talking in the glow of the gas lantern last night are from the UK. They were on a three-week trip through the US out of a minivan and cheap six-person tent, and they were having a good time. The other group were just two guys camping most of their daily lives for the past 25 years. Must be nice! I drove out to a different part of the park so I could get to the lake shore and enjoy the morning sun. Here is Lake Catherine facing northeast.

Facing southeast.

More Mallard ducks floated by and got onshore to walk a bit.

A small flock of large Canadian geese flew over ahead over the water and split up into groups. They were definitely larger than the Mallard ducks I was now seeing floating around the short little pier I was standing on. I wondered if the Mallards were the same ducks floating by last night...

I went on to drive through the park, and I found the trailhead for the trails inside this park. I decided to take the Falls Branch Trail, as it would be an easy one and I didn't have much time to hike very far.

This trail is the easiest of the three trails here, and it has rock steps and foot bridges with hand rails. Very pretty with lots of trees and not so flat.

Underneath the second wooden foot bridge.

The first stone steps you see on this path.

Looking back down from the stone steps.

By the time I left it was still cool, but I had to leave if I was going to get to my next stop. Today turned out to be a long drive, as I was tired from trying to stay warm all night and was sleepy the whole drive, pulling off to get gas, eat, and walk around a bit. I drove up I-30 onto I-40 on through Memphis to get to Lexington, TN on the way to my jeeper friends' house. I'm crossing into Tennessee here. The skyline to the southeast.

Approaching the bridge into Tennessee. Notice the pyramid to the left, on the other side of the Interstate. That is Pyramid Arena, built to host over 20,000 spectators. Though it's no longer used to host them, Bass Pro Shops appears to be the tenant there with the intent to open in late 2013.

Lexington definitely looks interesting from the road (412/20); the streets are narrow, and there are shops like the old-style small Sears stores that I grew up with in a small town and locally-owned grocery stores (there is even one that is 100% employee-owned), etc. It seems to be a fairly self-sufficient town for its size. It was way too busy to take photographs, with short stoplights, lots of them, though. It was all I could do to take it in!

When I finally got on the street my friend live on, the first thing I saw was a cemetery on the left. I felt like, "Okay, that must mean 'don't screw up in your new jeep...'"

I continued on to find the first house, which was numbered in the 200s. The next one was in the 400s, so I thought, "That can't be," and I drove back to the cemetery, confirming that I didn't see a house at this address, but I didn't see the address on the small church next to it, either. "I was sent to a cemetery?" Yet it didn't feel like it. The lady came up from up the street where I didn't see the house at all during the initial drive up the street. We said hi, and I offered her a ride in my jeep. We got in, and nothing... No lights on, no instrument lights, nothing. Completely dead. Why did it happen now and not 100 miles back or 200 miles out the next day? Right there close to a jeeper's house! It turned out to be a bad battery terminal. Her husband temporarily fixed it and said in the VERY NEAR future to get it replaced. Everything fired right up. It's just odd that the jeep lost power next to a cemetery. Near a jeeper's house! We got settled in for the night and had a great time talking about jeeps and lots of other things. The property here is very nice, with tall trees and a small garden for eating and canning food.