Norris Lake

I live five minutes' drive from here. It takes a bit longer to hike there, but it's worth the trip.

Friday afternoon I got home from work a bit early, and decided to put my unexpected extra time to good use. I changed clothes, tossed the first aid kit, the trail map of the Norris Watershed/Norris Dam State Park area, and two bottles of water into my pack. I did remember to put on bug repellent, but not sunscreen; and I made a foolish decision to wear my tennis shoes instead of hiking boots, since it was between 85 and 90 degrees and my sneaks are a lot cooler.

I started at the gristmill and hiked up to Longmire Trail. That took me to High Point Trail, and from there I took the High Point Spur that led to Lake View Trail. I didn't hike all of Lake View--it's a long trail and by the time I got to where I was going I'd hiked over three miles and my feet were bothering me.

See, there's a reason I own expensive hiking boots. So I won't wear sneaks on the trail and end up with blisters. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This is where I went, and who wouldn't?

It's a lovely little area where I was able to sit on some water-smoothed boulders and dabble my bare feet in the lake. My excuse for going here at all is that in Shadow Trail, which I'm still writing, my two main characters are going to need to camp here a few nights. I wanted to scope out the area. Also, I wanted to sit with my feet in the water.

I explored for a little while, then returned to the boulders to dabble my feet some more and drink one of my bottles of water. It was a lovely day, Friday afternoon, and lots of people were out on the lake. They kept driving by in their boats, which was fun for me since the wake waves kept washing up over my knees. I had my capri cuffs rolled way up. I watched some minnows in the water, and some spiders scurrying over the rocks, and suddenly an extra-big wave splashed me up to my waist.

I decided then that it was probably time to start back. Besides, there were thunderclouds building up and I didn't want to get caught in a storm (it never did storm, as it happens; I don't think it's ever going to rain here again). I waited until my feet had dried, then put on my shoes and headed back to the trail.

On the way back, I saw a repulsive huge black bug dragging the corpse of an enormous dead spider, but I didn't get a clear picture of it. I did get a good picture of a handsome toad, and a picture of this SCARY POISONOUS SNAKE oh wait.

On the way back, my toes--which were squished together by my tennis shoes, something I'd never noticed about those shoes before, probably because I'd never walked 6+ miles in them--really started to hurt. At one point I sat down in the middle of the trail and applied pieces of moleskin to keep the blisters from breaking. It did the trick, but it didn't make my toes any less painful. By the time I reached Longmire Trail again, I was hobbling along like an old lady. It's too bad, too, because other than my feet I felt great.

I was also ravenous and dying of thirst although I'd drunk all my water. When I was nearly back to my car, I called Papa John's Pizza and ordered a medium extra cheese and a 20-oz Pepsi (ick, Pepsi; they don't have Coke there). Sometimes you just have to eat half a pizza and chug an entire Pepsi.

I still have blisters, although they're not bad enough that they kept me from hiking up to pick raspberries today. But that's another post for another day.