September 10, 2011 – Friends, Elk, and ???

“Welcome to Land Between The Lakes.com !

Located in western Tennessee and Kentucky, Land Between the Lakes (i.e. LBL) is the largest inland peninsula in the U.S.A. Originally created when the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers were impounded (creating Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley), LBL features over 170,000 acres of forested & protected public land, and over 300 miles of undeveloped shoreline. Maintained and managed by the USDA Forest Service, LBL welcomes over 2 million visitors a year.”

LBL Map

 

Land Between The Lakes Map

More info at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Between_the_Lakes

There is a road that goes thru the LBL called “The Trace” so today we decided to start exploring.  If you look at the above map, we are camped just south of Grand Rivers. 

This view is looking west towards Kentucky Lake:

 

And this view is looking east towards Lake Barkley:

Notice how beautiful the day is -

Our next stop was the Kentucky Dam Drive.  On our first pullover, I heard a small meow and look what came out of the brush:

Okay, so here is the dilemma – do we take her or not?  She looked healthy and very young and very skinny.  What do we do about our Dusty?  Sooo…..   we decided to take her, see if she gets along with Dusty and if not, take her to a shelter.  

Sue and I went back to get the cat carrier while Andy and Bruce stayed at the lookout.  During that time, a gentleman came up; she came out and he gave her water.  He told Andy and Bruce that he saw her a few days ago and was feeding her.  He could not take her home because of his other cats.  He also called the shelters – one was full, the other was a kill shelter and he figured she had a better chance outdoors.

So we loaded her up in the carrier and took her back to meet Dusty.   Dusty was not at all happy.  He continues to growl at her and follow her around.  We will give that a few days so stay tuned – this will be fun!

We spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out and watching the cats.

Sue and Bruce:

 

Around 5, we headed to the Elk and Bison Preserve. This is the time of the “bugling” for the elk and we were not disappointed.   The sound is eerie..

We did not get to see the elk up close but we were rewarded by the “bugling” of this lad:

 

We also spotted this guy:

  

And some of the bison herd:

The Elk herd originated from individuals received from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada during 1996.  The bison herds were first established in 1969 and include animals from federal lands in Nebraska and North and South Dakota.

More pictures from around the Prairie Preserve:

How about that sky in the above pictures?  A storm was rolling in so we headed back to the motorhome.  The storm missed us so we enjoyed another wonderful campfire.

Enjoy today.