Panther Creek State Park, Morristown, Tennessee
Now then, I tell you the truth: Three more kings will appear in Persia . . . ~ Daniel 11:2a
King #1 – Cambyses II
- Ruled from 530-522BC
- Cyrus’ son
- Lots of speculation as to how he died. Most reference a thigh injury.
King #2 – Gaumata (NOT Cyrus’ son) Since he’s not legitimate, there are no pictures of him
- Ruled for one year in 522BC
- NOT legitimate. Most believe he was a priest/magi (a magi is a member of the priestly cast in Persia) who impersonated Cambyses’ brother, Bardiya
- Killed by Darius I in 522BC
King #3 – Darius I
- NOT Darius the Mede
- Ruled 522-486BC
- Started the first “pony express” for messengers. Messengers were stationed along the road so no one traveled more than a day at a time
- Claimed relation to Cyrus The Great thru Cyrus’ great grandfather
- Died in November 486BC from an illness
- He organized the empire by dividing it into provinces and placing satraps (governors) to govern them (see Dan 6:1)
- He made Aramaic the official language and organized a new uniform monetary system
- He was forced to have Daniel thrown to the lions (Dan 6)
- He supported Cyrus The Great’s decree that Jerusalem and the temple be restored (Ezra 6)
It’s Sunday. We tend to relax more on Sunday afternoon, but since there were no churches in the area that piqued our interest, we had church via YouTube with our home church in Green.
Afterwards, I said, “Let’s walk the trail across the street!” Sounded like a great idea at the time.
The Ore Mine Trail turned into the Lost Road Trail almost turned into the Lost Trail Trail. This was not a great hike for me from nearly the beginning as we climbed a mountain walking through slippery leaves that provided deep cover for all manner of objects to trip us up – rocks, roots, branches, nuts….
We hiked a lot of difficult trails at Natural Tunnel State Park, but never felt we needed our hiking sticks. Today, it was fortunate we had them with us because they got a lot of use.
We hiked through a lot of leaves at Natural Tunnel, but only once felt the need to empty our boots en route. Today, I had to stop to clean prickly leaf pieces out from around my ankles as they dug into my princess skin. (think “Princess and the Pea” – that’s me!)
And then I almost got run over by an amateur jogger who snuck up behind me because Blaine and I were making so much leaf noise I didn’t hear him. If I was a screamer, I would’ve, but I’m an inhaler and did that very well. He knew he’d scared me.
Eventually, we came to a fork in the trail and as we made our decision, a waft of cigarette smoke came over us from the group way ahead of us. Seemed pretty dangerous to us to be smoking in a dry leaf strewn forest.
Then came the hardest part.
The sign said ‘Lookout Point’ .25. Seemed like a great idea. What they didn’t mention was that the entire .25 was straight up! 300’ nearly straight up! Picture the rock wall at Natural Tunnel. Remember that? That’s 300’.
We did it! And burned a lot of calories today to cover meatball subs and fried green tomatoes for dinner. And the view at the top was quite nice!
We had no intention of hiking back the way we’d come, so we took the rest of the loop which added more steps, but was much easier than the way we’d come. 😊
For all my dramatics, it was a good hike on a beautiful day. Honest!
