Coming in from Webster Parish, we headed east toward the town of Athens, from which we'd go northeast to Lake Claiborne State Park, a popular campsite and fishing spot in northern Louisiana where we planned to have ourselves a campout. Along the way was the last of five parish highpoints we did for the day. Claiborne Parish's highpoint is an actual hill, but a narrow dirt road leads right to the top so no actual work was needed to bag this one. In Old Athens we went north past a church and cemetary about a mile, then east on Fire Tower Road about 3/10 of a mile, then northeast on the unnamed road to the top. The top is a cleared area ringed by trees, and is obviously a hangout for the local kids. We stayed long enough to get a photo of me, and that was all. This otherwise unremarkable spot is the second-highest parish highpoint in the state, after Bienville Parish's Driskill Mountain.

From here we continued on to Lake Claiborne and found a nice spot to set up for the night. The camping at Lake Claiborne was very nice: modern campsites, not too crowded, very lovely views. The lake is very big and popular for fishing. However, on our visit the water level was way down. Even walking out to the end of the pier, I was standing over mud.

That night we had ourselves a good fire and sat around it, checking out the stars. A very cute and friendly black kitty hung around us, and we pet it and gave it some treats. It may have belonged to a nearby camper or even the camp-host, whoi wasn't too far off. Or it may have been a stray. That night it pawed at our tent door to get in. I hope it has a good home.

The next day we looked at two other parish highpoints, in Caddo and Bossier parishes, but passed on both. I walked in a little in Caddo parish, but came upon some very scary "residences" and thought bgetter than to try my luck. In Bossier parish, there were hunters everywhere, so we didn't even bother. We entered into Texas and bagged one more county highpoint in Cass County. That was effectively the end of our trip, as we proceeded to eat up hundreds of miles of driving west toward Arizona.