Paris Mountain State Park

We slept with the windows open last night. The crickets and cicadas were very loud and I loved listening to them. The campground itself was barely occupied. You can also hear a train blowing its whistle on a regular basis through the night. I find it a comforting sound. Unfortunately in the middle of the night I could hear a lot of dogs barking in the distance. It's either a puppy mill farm, which really disturbs me to think of that, or most likely it's someone that hunts and has a lot of dogs in kennels. They probably saw a wild animal and once one started to bark they all started to bark. I ended up putting my earplugs in.

Today Jim and I didn't leave the park. Jim spent the morning working and making business phone calls...oh and cooking bacon on the camp stove. I made buckwheat pancakes and we finally ate around 11:00. It was worth the wait. In the afternoon we took a three mile hike to the visitor center and around Lake Placid. Paris Mountain State Park was built in 1935 and if you take the time to read the information in the visitor center (which we did) it really is amazing how they built things back then. Most of the structures are stacked stones and timbers. I found it architecturally pleasing to the eye.

Boo saw the water and like most labs wanted to go for a swim. After walking around a good part of the lake we found a spot for him to get his toes wet. We only had our 6-foot leash and weren't about to let him go freely into the water. There was a dam close by, not to mention bears, raccoons and other wildlife. Jim held onto the leash and Boo eventually stuck his head under the water and retrieved a stick to chew on. That's what he does at the river back in Virginia. Eventually we walked backed to the campsite. I kept my eye out for copperhead snakes hiding in the leaves. They are prevalent in this area. Also the ranger said someone spotted a black bear in the park a couple of days ago. One can never be too careful.

When we got back to the campground we gave Boo a bath and showered ourselves. Easy peasy pasta and marinara sauce for dinner. No gourmet cooking tonight.