Castle Mischief: September 9, 2012 - Cedar's of Lebanon, Murfreesboro, Barfield Crescent

For the last two nights we have been camping at Cedars of Lebanon State Park in our pop-up. Our last day of our trip, I started it by running out and finding an older geocache that was hidden in 2001 just off a nearby trail.

After everybody was up and fed we went back down the trail with our friends to explore the sinkholes that our kids used to climb down eight years ago.

The big nose tree

We split off from the group for a bit to grab lunch and a quick hike in Murfressboro starting at Canonsburgh Village and taking the greenway to Sal y Limon Mexican Resturant.

World's Largest Cedar Bucket- gaze in awe

Familiar graffiti

We reconnected at Barfield Crescent Park where we hiked around a bit, played some Frisbee golf and encountered several water snakes in the creek.

Some of you may be looking at these pictures and you're now screaming COPPERHEAD RUN FOR THE HILLS!!! I assure you, these are not copperheads but are in fact harmless water snakes. How do I know this? Two things- the rounded pupils and the shape of the dark bands. Water snakes have a saddle-shaped dark band that it thicker near the spine and thinner near the belly. The dark band on copperhead is reversed- thinner near the spine and thicker near the belly of the snake.

I tried to make up several memorable little rhymes to help me remember this difference- much like the "Red on yellow, kill a fellow"; "Red on black, friend of Jack" for king snakes and coral snakes. The best I could come up with was "saddle like a horse, friendly of course" and "hour-glass bands, bite you on the hand". I think these could use some work.