A Little More from David Crockett

A 4 mile hike at the park was just what we needed.  It's been raining since we left Ohio and being cooped up for so long was a pain.  But we're now back to normal!   A few pictures along the trail.

This little fellow followed us throughout the hike :)

Thankfully, she did too!!

The Tennessee State Park flower......fungi :)  I don't think it ever dries out around here.

Back to the campsite for rib eye steak and salad...yum!

We were blessed again with more friends :)  We met the Camps who were actually musicians that are frequently in demand around the state.  They didn't have their instruments with them on this trip and we didn't get any pictures of them, unfortunately.  She plays rhythm guitar and he, the bass.  Maybe next time.........
We did get a picture of Kathy, Rusty, Dumplin' (a rescue) and Dixie.

We hope to meet again, somewhere, and spend more time together.  As you can tell from the window, they are big Alabama fans!  Even after finding out we were representing Ohio State and Clemson they still liked us :)  BTW they pull a 3/4 ton pickup truck behind that big rig!

I almost forgot......and now for the rest of the story!

We picked up our truck with 22 miles last February.  We were at 35825 miles yesterday and needed an oil change and tire rotation.  We figured we wanted the dealer to thoroughly check out the truck before it hit the warranty limit of 36000.  We progressively had difficulties with opening the tailgate for the past couple of weeks.  The only way to open it is to push a button to unlock and swing down the door.  No handle, no other way of opening it.  Not good!  There was a rattle now inside the door and after pushing the button 10 times or so, it would eventually open.  As expected, the dealership told us the problem needed to be duplicated for them to troubleshoot.  Of course the tailgate behaved for them and they couldn't do anything for us.  So I asked them how do we get the door down when it happens while we're in the middle of nowhere.  "We don't know".  Well that was not a good answer as far as I was concerned.  After expressing my dissatisfaction they suggested taking it to a body shop if it happened again.  You know, an "after warranty" suggestion.  We left and went back to our campsite.  Later that afternoon as I opened the tailgate again, I heard a rather distinctive "clunk".  Oh great, a nut fell off of a bolt and now I don't know if the tailgate is going to fall off going down the road...or what?  I found 10 screws I could take off the inside cover so I figured to remove it the next morning.  I couldn't be driving and wondering if the tailgate would stay attached.  This morning I took it off to discover the problem.  Red squirrels plague Mom by taking up residency, on occasion, in her attic.  I've been battling them for 2 months and finally extricated them from within her house.  Apparently 1 found a way into the tailgate and built a rather large, thick, impressive nest around the release rods for the tailgate.  Complete with one black walnut....the distinctive "clunk".  After clean-out and lubrication, all is back to normal!

Mystery solved!  On to our next adventure :)