Green caterpillar (limacodid?): id help please

[Pierre A Plauzoles]

Hello.

While on a trip through Tennessee last week, we stopped at a rest area in 
the mountains of Tennessee (near Nashville).  While the rest of the 
family was attending to their ... needs, I looked at the oak (broadleaf, 
pinnately lobed, concave lobes) on the grounds.  Between two leaves at 
the tip of one branch, I found a green caterpillar about 2.5 cm long.  It 
was covered with spines, many on fleshy protuberances, the longest of 
which were on forward and rear ends, like those of the saddleback but 
not facing rearward as much.  

Needless to say, reminded of the saddleback's and monkeyslug's defenses and their spines' irritant potential, I did not 
touch it :-) - although I did blow on it in an attempt to get some 
reaction.  No luck (it probably thought I was a jay or cuckoo trying to get 
it to move so it could become bird food...).

Does anyone out there have any ideas as to what this "beastie" might be?

Thanks.  Any comment will be welcome.

PS: Get as technical (or as non-technical) as you wish: amateur though I 
may be, techie stuff like scientific terminology, whatever its nature, does 
not faze me in the least - I just go look it up before I reply.
-- 
Pierre Plauzoles   ae779 at lafn.org
Canoga Park, California