Category: 2020 Land Between the Lakes (LBL)

After a full day in the tent, we were ready to go. I made Bunny the delicious breakfast and coffee she has come to expect, nay, demand. Today, we had a new breakfast scramble from Next Mile Meals which is the new standard for Bunny. Next Mile Meals is a new company created by former thru-hikers that wanted to have tasty and nutritious backpacking meals. Healthy is nice, but the cherry on top for Bunny was a scramble without green peppers (and with the gaseous side effect on Bunny, I appreciated it as well). While I finished tearing down camp, Bunny performed her morning routine. When she returned, she said ‘Clean face, clean hands, clean butt..who could ask for anything more AND don’t you quote me on that!’ Or some such words to that effect. 

As I said, we were ready to go. Today was our earliest start this trip—out by 9 with a goal of 14 miles today. There was virtually no one on the trail today. We only saw a total of 3 people all day. One man was day hiking and a couple was having a picnic beside the trail. They might have been backpacking or just picnicking. We didn’t get close enough to make the call.

This part of the trail dropped down to the shore of Ky Lake. It was an deal day of hiking, but I wouldn’t want every day to be like this. I’m a firm believer for the need of crappy and hard days to really appreciate these great days. The closest thing we had to controversy was when Bunny was walking briskly in front of me and suddenly stopped. This usually signifies that a fart is imminent. I braved myself for impact because she was statuesque in nature.

To my relief, it was just a snake. I would rather face a poisonous snake than end up in one of Bunny’s clouds. With a snake bite, there’s a pretty good chance of survival if medical attention is received within a day or two. 

We were kind of surprised with the lack of nature in the LBL. Sure, we saw lots of deer, a few snakes, turtles, and plenty of birds, but no small mammals, bison, or bear. All of the wildlife must be headed toward the cities to reclaim it in nature’s name.  Before we came out, we were seeing almost daily news reports of dolphins in the canals of Venice, deer on city streets, and lame bears limping around Chicago. 

To my great relief, Bunny’s attention is starting to turn towards artistic endeavors. If she gets involved with art projects, she just might stop thinking about chores for me to do around the cabin. Before we even started on this short trip, she was talking of collecting spiral shells from Kentucky Lake to make a welcome sign for the cabin. When we stopped for lunch on the shore of lake, we found a beach covered with spiral shells. Bunny was in heaven. 

We were making great time and still had a leisurely lunch on the beach. We came to a trail junction to Coffin Cove which was less than 0.2 off trail, so we had to go check it our. I’m not 100% certain, but I’m willing this got it’s name early on after the dam was built and the lake started filling. There are lots of little family cemeteries all around and I’m sure not all burials in olden days were very deep. I can imagine a few shallow dug graves spitting up some occupants…

The site was beautiful. It was a sunny day (but not hot), there was a pleasant breeze, lots of birds in the trees around us, and there were even logs for us to sit on. We couldn’t resist the campsite. We decided to cut our day shorter than planned. After a nice rest, we set up our tent. Bunny went down to wash off and splash in the lake, eventually falling as she was imitating a spawning fish.

Even though water was plentiful, we decided to eat our other ‘heat and eat’ meal of rice, quinoa, and beans. Once we started eating this, we saw the error of our ways. This was the companion packet to the Masala Chicken we had eaten our first night out. The meal was less than satisfying. Good thing we had mint Oreos to drown our sorrows in.

After supper, we just sat and watched nature and the sunset. This was the best campsite we’ve had the entire trip. Like is good on Kentucky Lake. 

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We’ve sure been able to check out our new tent for how it holds up to rain. For the second night in a row, we got some rain, but it had stopped by the time Bunny awoke around 9. She then, allowed me to make her breakfast. It was at this point, something very strange happened. Bunny got lit on fire.

Not in the “help! I’m burning” sense. More in the sense of she started moving at a frantic pace to get ready. She was entirely packed before I even finished eating. I had checked the weather forecast a couple days ago that disagreed with the forecast Bunny was operating on. My forecast said Wednesday was our best chance for rain. Bunny’s said yesterday. She was ready to rock. Plus, she hadn’t been out of the tent, yet, to go to the bathroom (the true motivator!)

While she was out relieving herself, my forecast kicked in. I went ahead and finished packing thinking we’d wait until after the rain to get going. Bunny came back, crawled into the vestibule, and checked the current forecast. It showed rain ending in an hour. We waited. 

One hour turned to two. The new forecast called for thunderstorms. I knew we were done. We’ve been known to take zero days to avoid storms. I’m sure this would be no exception. Bunny unpacked her sleeping pad and took off her clothes. What choice did I have. I set my bed back up and took a nap. We’ve put in 3 solid days where we have been awake for almost 12 hours each day. We deserved a day of rest and recovery. Bunny slept. I obeyed. 

When the thunderstorm did start, I was afraid Bunny was going to make a new hole in the bathtub of the tent as she tried to burrow underneath me. I have never seen anyone as afraid of storms as she is. I got in trouble because I wasn’t worried and continued to sleep. 

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The drug cocktail Bunny forced me to take last night was only partially effective (I might be building a tolerance to arsenic). It did keep me paralyzed to the point that I couldn’t get up to pee, but it wasn’t too strong to keep me knocked out enough to not hear the armadillo rummaging outside of our tent (double negative thrown in to give the grammar police something to do). Nothing could have kept me from hearing the owl battle in the trees above us. I have no idea what got the owls so worked up (possibly Godzilla or Sasquatch, because I swear there were rocks being thrown around). Even Bunny agreed this was more than a raccoon encounter, but she has a very vivid nighttime imagination.

Does anyone think that Michael Jordon can’t still sink a 3? Once you develop a skill to the point of muscle memory, only complete loss of those muscles would result in the loss of that ability. I’m sure faithful readers know where this is headed. Rather than get into the specifics of whether there is enough fiber in my diet, or if I’ve been drinking enough, let’s just suffice it to say “Stella (Easy) got her (his) groove back!” I will be walking with a bit more pep today. 

Including the poop delay (oops, TMI) we still managed to get our earliest start to date—9:50. A part of me was afraid to stay in the tent since it was so close to (on) the trail. We are not really in a hurry on this trip, at all. We pre-arranged to have Bunny’s parents drop off food for us tomorrow, but we’re only 6 miles from the drop point. Bunny wanted to go slow today and still meet them tomorrow, as planned, but the trail is not challenging enough to justify taking 28 hours to cover 6 miles. She finally agreed to call them (I’m still not trusted with a phone) and change the pickup to this afternoon.

The LBL may not have much geologically speaking, but it is a temperate paradise for birds. Our wildlife sightings to date include some usual suspects for the area (deer, turtles, frogs, toads, coyotes—no roadrunners, buffalo—enclosed pastures, an armadillo, squirrels, and tons of birds). And let’s not forget the horses. They aren’t wild ones like we saw in Wales or the Greyson Highlands of VA. We had to struggle through a few more miles of destroyed trail today to make it to the Golden Pond Visitor Center to get our food drop. 

It was the hottest day of hiking we have encountered so far. It was pretty close to, if not 80, by noon. Our new meeting time was 12:30 which gave us plenty of time to take breaks and cool off. Something different today, we did run across a few day hikers on the trail, but this was to be expected getting near to tourists areas (welcome/visitor centers). We arrived before Bunny’s ps which allowed us to get rid of trash and fill up on water. When they arrived, I went through the food and sent quite a bit back. At the rate we are going, we easily have an extra couple days of food. They stuck around while we ate our lunch.

Part of the concession I had to make to get Bunny to call her parents was to agree to a shorter day today. The next trail camp was only a couple of miles from the visitor center. Once we crossed under 68/80, the trail started dropping off of the ridge toward the Kentucky Lake side of the LBL. I’m already liking the northern half of the trail better than the southern half. This is not a shared use trail with horses but is for hikers and bikers only. There also seems to be a lot more water flowing in the streams. We covered the less than 3 miles to camp in time to have the tent up by 4:30.

Bunny likes to wash off as much as possible in the back country. I do appreciate this since we share a tent. I’m usually too busy fetching water, organizing equipment, cooking, and a million other things that Bunny thinks just magically happen on the trail to have the time to indulge in cleaning rituals. Today, however, with our early stop, I took the opportunity to clean up in the creek before preparing our gourmet supper. 

We had some new sauces to try out from a company called Kevin’s Natural Foods (that’s where I got the Korean BBQ sauce last night). Today, I was carrying a Thai Coconut Curry Sauce as well as a 1/2 pound can of chicken. I never thought to check out the can before I started to fix supper. Usually, canned meats come with some sort of opening key or pop-top. Not this chicken! I didn’t have a can opener or a pocket knife. Last year, Bunny carried a spork with a can opener on the handle, but she’s opted for a longer titanium spork this year. I felt like Captain Kirk as I leaved back and yelled at the sky…only “Caaaan!” not “Kahn!”

Bunny said just make supper without the chicken and carry it out. No way I was going to carry an extra 1/2# another 30 miles. I racked my brain trying to remember how to open a can without a can opener. I seemed to recall rubbing it on concrete to wear down the rim. No concrete, but there were a few pieces of relatively flat sandstone around the fire pit. I started rubbing. Bunny said I was wasting my time, she wanted to eat and go to bed (it was barely 5!). This increased my resolve, but to be sure, I begged to be allowed to touch the phone to see if we had signal to YouTube “how to open a can without a can opener.” I confirmed I was right. 

In the process, I broke 3 different pieces of sandstone, but I was able to wear through the rim enough that I could fit Bunny’s titanium spork in the can and pry the top off. Even Bunny will agree the result was worth the effort as this was our best trail supper of the last 3 years. Remember, we’re only 3 days out and don’t have hiker hunger where ramen noodles and spam are a delicacy. Thai Curry Coconut chicken with Knorr chicken noodles, hot herbal tea, and Oreos for dessert. We would be willing to make this same meal at home and think it was great. It was so good, Bunny didn’t even try to drug me when she went to bed. Baby steps. 

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The hunters finally shut their generator off around 5. This woke me up for many reasons: the white noise was gone, I could hear birds chirping, I had to pee (the drugs Bunny had given me paralyzed me and kept me from getting up all night), and Bunny’s snoring seemed loud as ever. There was no way I was going to wake up a snoring Bunny. The only person that can wake Bunny up early and not get hurt is Bear, and we won’t be hiking with them until the end of June thanks to the Chinese flu. She finally woke up at 9 and allowed me to make her some coffee. 

One of the main reasons we are out now (other than being stir crazy from isolation) is to try out some new gear we have acquired over the winter. We got new Superior Wilderness Design backpacks (which, this switch alone, saves me over 4#), a new LightHeart Duo tent (a few ounces heavier than our Z-Packs Triplex, but so much roomier), Hoke One One “Old Goat” shoes (which are lighter and better for my plantar fasciitis), and we are returning to Thermarest Neoair sleeping pads (I’ve given up on Big Agnes completely).

We didn’t pass, or see, any living people today. We did pass 3 cemeteries today, including a Rushing family cemetery. When I bought my old place in Southern Illinois, my next door neighbors were the Rushings. I took a few pictures of some headstones dating from the mid 1800s. Most stones were so worn away we couldn’t make out anything. The only other sounds of human activity were a few cars passing on the Trace when we were close enough to hear it.

Buffalo used to roam in this area. To this day, there are two separate enclosures for buffalo in the Land Between the Lakes. When the European settlers came into this area, they adopted the route the buffalo used as a cart path. Over the decades, the path evolved to a paved road which is currently referred to as the Trace. Today’s visitors to the LBL are actually driving up and down an old buffalo path. 

Yesterday, we walked along the water divide between the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Today, we dropped down to Barkley side and encountered more streams and gullies. We also encounter a shared section of trail for equestrian use. I was happy with encountering streams but, less than thrilled about sharing the trail with horses (even though we didn’t encounter any).

The problem with sharing the trail with horses doesn’t have anything to do with horses. I love them. It’s the stupid owners (or unknowing riders) that ruin it. Horses are not afraid to walk in mud. Stupid riders don’t want to get their horse’s hooves wet and muddy, so they ride around the puddles and widen them. Pretty soon, a small puddle can evolve into 1/4 mile of muddy, slick trail impossible for hikers to walk around. Stay the F on the trail with your horses!

We made it to the trail junction with Laurel Mountain Spring, but the trail was severely overgrown and unmaintained. After last night’s missing water hydrant, I was reluctant to bushwhack 0.8 miles to find out the spring had disappeared a century ago. We had already hiked nearly 12 miles and I didn’t want to see my poor, limping, Bunny go through the extra effort. Hasn’t she been through enough? Instead, I let Bunny find us a flat spot to set up camp.

Bunny did find us a fairly flat spot with only one hitch…it was on the trail. I think this is becoming a new tradition for us. Like our friends son, Daniel, who camped in the middle of the AT, we have started doing likewise. Odds are thin that anyone will care since we have seen any other backpackers (or even day-hikers) yet.

While Bunny set up our beds and did general nest building for the night, I went and got 4 L of water and cooked an experimental supper. Tonight, we used a Korean BBQ sauce with some Spam and a package of Knorr garlic pasta shells. It turned out very nicely but was a bit salty. Next time, I’ll use reduced salt Spam (we’ve been heavily influenced by our recent trip to Hawaii). We stayed up until almost 8 tonight listening to owls and whip-poor-wills serenading us. 

Many people who regularly read this blog should now be wondering “2 days in and no poop stories? What’s happening with Easy?” Easy is wondering the same thing. Why don’t I even have the potential for a poop story? What has happened to my bowels? Is this a symptom of covid-19? Am I going to die? Please, with all the shit coming out of Washington, why can’t I even get a little bit for myself?

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It was time. We’ve sheltered in place long enough that between the two of us, we are carrying the equivalent weight of bringing a dog on the trail with us. Not a little yappy shit, I’m talking Great Pyrenees. It’s not pretty. Actually, Great Pyrenees are beautiful dogs, but we don’t really have one with us on the trail. We only have her weight with us. Divided nearly evenly between the two of us. Bunny might have a slightly bigger portion of pooch butt (I always complemented Ilana on her small butt), but I got the rest of her on my stomach. 

I knew it was time when Bunny’s parents joined us at their “cabin” on Kentucky Lake. They had a bit of concern about being able to get food over here, which kept them away. I became a bit suspicious when they started touching me more than usual…not just a pat on the shoulder, but more of a “Special K pinch.”  I would occasionally catch a tape measure out of the corner of my eye. I got scared when I heard them talking about needing a bigger freezer. Since I’m the last to join the family, they’ve determined I’m the first to go. If I’m going, it’s going to be to hide in the woods to extend my life. 

Bunny’s parents reluctantly took us to the southern visitor center in the Land Between the Lakes (LBL) where the North/South Trail begins. I’m thinking they were not too happy about loosing their meat source, but I felt they could use the time to investigate other supplies which might not incur jail time. They even walked with us for the first 50 yards of trail. They were pretty much the last people we saw today. We only saw 1 person with a Walmart dog all day (he found the dog in a Walmart parking lot and gave it a new life).

When the Tennessee Valley Authority was established in the 1940s, imminent domain was used to evacuate over 1000 families and 2 towns between the Tennessee River and Cumberland River in Western Kentucky. This was more people than needed to be moved to create a lake by damming the Tennessee River, but a lot of families were happy to take the money and run (but a lot of families were forcibly removed).  The intention was to develop a recreation area between the rivers. This was finally established under the Kennedy Administration when Barkley Lake was created after damming the Cumberland River. All buildings and structures were removed in the peninsula but all the family cemeteries were left undisturbed. On our “Sixth Sense” hike today, we passed way more dead people than living people as we walked by three family cemeteries.

The trail is a very pleasant and easy walk but without anything significant to see. It really is just an idyllic walk in the woods. The portion of trail we hiked today was along the ridge which is the water divide between the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers. We passed several cleared areas along the trail which were probably once homesteads.

Camp was supposed to have water according to the 2003 guide book we were using. There was even a sign indicating a water hydrant 150 yards from the shelter we camped by, but when I went in search of it…no luck. I ran into 2 turkey hunters camped by the fire tower where the water was supposed to be. They gave us 2 bottles of water after they told us they had been hunting in the area for the past 30 years and had never encountered any water near us. I would have been in serious, life threatening trouble if they had not given me the water. As it was, I was able to set enough water aside to ensure that Bunny would be able to have her morning coffee. Crisis averted!

To save water, we had a meal which only required the package to be submerged in boiling water to heat it up. These meals tend to be a bit heavy to carry, but it allowed us to use much less water for supper. I used the water from boiling supper to make us hot tea to drink.

As we were finishing up our chicken masala, the hunters started up their generator. This was not exactly the sounds of nature we were hoping for, but it would help to drown out the eventual snores of Bunny. It was still full sun when Bunny commanded I go to bed. I asked what time it was and she told me 7:30. It seemed too bright to me for that, so I checked for myself (our mailing address IS in Missouri)—it was only 6:30. We’ve been married over 3 years now. I’ve been beaten down and know my place. I didn’t argue. I didn’t even question it. I went to bed as commanded. 

Bunny gave me a hand full of pills she said would help me sleep. I reminded her I don’t carry life insurance (I always consider it good practice to be worth more alive, than dead, to your spouse). As I was dozing off, Bunny said “my penguin is starting to kick in.” 

“How so? Is he going to carry your pack?” 

“Who?” 

“You’re penguin.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“You’re penguin!” 

“I don’t have a penguin.” 

“You just said your penguin is starting to kick in and I was wondering how.”

“I said my pain pills are starting to kick in! Get your ears cleaned out.”

Bunny mumbles a lot and then blames me. I just went to bed like a good husband who’s been told to do so. It was only 6:30, but it had been a long day. We had been up almost 11 hours and who knows what drugs she was giving me. 

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