tennessee ticks, spiders, snakes, floods, and other natural disasters

so we took a trip to tennessee at the beginning of last month. wow, it was that long ago already!?
anyways, we've been meaning to share a bit of our adventures and i guess, we're just now getting around to it.

mark's cousin, brian, got married on a cruise in april. he and his wife, sara, invited those who were not able to attend the wedding to a reception at natchez trace state park, tn. mark's parents invited us to join them on the trip and rented a couple of cabins for us to stay at the park. we packed ourselves in our very full minivan for a long drive and camped overnight in an undesirable state park in southern il. abundant with ticks. mark's parents met us in tn having brought their dog and fishing boat. we were hoping to make use of the lake and trails at the park since we would be there for 4 nights. but the weather forecast was not so optimistic.
our first day was fun. we toured the park a bit, met great grandpa and grandma milligan at the lodge for supper, and got settled in our cabins. that night it began to rain.

when we woke up the next morning, the lake had risen and it was reported that we had received 7 inches of rain already, just overnight! we attempted to go visit great grandpa and grandma milligan twice that 2nd day. we met many obstacles including flooding, trees down, water rushing across the roads, roads closed, detours, etc. we felt like we spent the day in the van all over again. but a rather interesting thing happened . . . in our first attempt out of the park we met a tree down in the road. our 2 vans were on one side of the tree. two trucks, one being a park ranger vehicle, were on the opposite side of the tree. the ranger began cutting up the tree with a chainsaw, so mark and bill and the driver of the 3rd vehicle helped move the tree off the road. it was pouring down rain. the other helper was none other than cousin brian! haa! he informed us that they had canceled the reception on account of the weather, but invited us to join them that evening at their rented villa at the state park.

the rain did not stop for 3 days. the boat, instead of getting to go out on the water, had to be drained of water. we were a bit disappointed about the turn of events, but that did not put an end to our adventures.
the rather large tennessee spiders thought our cabins were a good shelter from the storms. we found them taking refuge in our shoes and doorways - ahhhhh!

we did manage to make it to grandpa and grandma's on the third day. that was really nice!

on the fourth day the rain stopped. we decided to brave the rather flooded park and take some of the children on a hike. mark's parents watched the 3 littles so we could take hogan, owen and leannora on a 4 mile trail around the lake. this turned out to be a bigger adventure than we had imagined. it took us a while to get to the trail head from our cabin, but we knew the trail ended back near the cabins. then the trail was washed out in many places. thankfully, there were orange markers all along the way. we loved crossing the first few stream where the bridges had been destroyed because we felt like such bold adventurers. but then we met all sorts of swampy areas along the trail and had a difficult time strategizing how to keep our feet dry. we got pretty exhausted after a while of that. we didn't bring a map or our phones (which weren't working at the park anyway), so we didn't know how far we had gone or what time it was. we did think to bring water, that was good.

it was enjoyable looking for little lizards and snakes along the way until we met a rather large one coiled up just inches from our path. i suggested we go around to the left. it was owen who noticed the second large snake coiled up just inches from our alternate route around the first snake. i asked why it looked dead with it's eyes closed and mouth hanging open and mark said "i think it was about to strike". that was the point that i freaked out. a very tired pregnant momma out in the middle of snake infested swampland feeling very vulnerable with 3 young worn out children and still an unknown end to this journey. mark wisely did not mention to me that he thought the snakes were poisonous. (later we added up that we saw 4 copperheads.)

at some point after the snake scenario we lost the trail markers. we had given up being strategic about foot placement on flooded trails. it seemed the rain had preferred washing down the path. and because we were following a path around the lake which had risen in feet from 3 days of rain, much of the low areas had become saturated. along the way we guessed that most of the trail had been under water just the day before. i did not want to walk in water anymore and asked if we could take a fork in the trail heading up. mark suggested going around the low area, but i refused to go separately with snakes flooded out of their usual homes. so we got lost a few times trying to get around the water logged land. that was a pretty hopeless feeling.

we did finally make it to the end of the trail with very soaked and tired feet. mark had run ahead of us near the end so that he could pick us up with the van. but it was mark's dad, bill, who picked us up instead. bill and sara had been worried because we had been out for about 4 hours. they had started looking for us. we got razzed about our foolishness and i was put on probation for the rest of the day. (everybody was concerned about the baby, but really i was fine, just tired.) it was a funny thing once we had been "rescued" and were safely back at the cabin. suddenly, instead of being exhausted, we felt like we had conquered some crazy challenge and won.

anyways, communication was very poor in our area of the park. we were cut off from the current news and our verizon connection was totally down in that part of tn. later we found out that the area had been declared a natural disaster. tornadoes, extreme flooding, etc. in spite of this, we were able to visit with some of the family at various times. and the evening of our great hike adventure we hosted a hot dog and marshmallow roast with a bit of the milligan family. that was a really good time.our return home was not so crazily eventful. we camped at turkey run state park, in. it has some really great hiking!!! there we met a homeschool family and maybe made a neat future friendship. it turns out that most of the campers around us were homeschooling families.
the children were amazing throughout everything, especially the driving. we learned that books on tape/cd are a new must on long travels. daddy's keepsake box of super hero action figures came in handy too. we rarely eat out at fast food restaurants, so a couple of last minute treat stops was a great pick us up.
we have decided that we LOVE living in wisconsin. once arriving in our state we couldn't stop sighing the contented oohs and aahhhs of being home. but tennessee travels make good memories (and lots of laundry).