What more can one ask for in a holiday weekend? Good friends - check. Good food - check. Favorite adult beverages - check. PERFECT weather - check. A boat, an inner tube, cliffs to jump off of - check, check, and check! For Labor Day weekend we took Just a Nutter Road Trip down I-75 through Kentucky to a little town called Albany and the Wolf River Resort and Marina on Dale Hollow Lake. A friend of ours owns a permanent park model in the resort there which also has temporary RV sites and a marina where they rent everything from pontoon boats, speed boats, jet skis, and house boats. Our friend also owns a boat and has a slip there so we were "hooked up" so to speak! We've been friends for years, as our son and her son have grown up together playing soccer, baseball, and basketball together - most of which Ken coached - so the kids were all on board (pun intended) to make it an epic weekend - and that's certainly what it was!
Right after school on Friday, we headed out of town (and got stopped in traffic about 20 miles from home, then again in Lexington, then again, and again) toward the Kentucky/Tennessee state line. With darkness upon us, we pulled into the campground. The host was just coming back to the office and told us to just go to our site and come back and square up the bill in the morning - awesome! (See our campground review of the Wolf River Resort and Marina under our Tips>Campground Reviews page)
So we backed into our site and leveled up the RV before heading up the hill to our friend's trailer on level 2. Once there we sat and talked for an hour or two before heading to bed. Another family was heading in to stay in the trailer and we wanted to be out of the way for their arrival, plus we knew we'd need our rest for the next day!
On Saturday morning we headed back up the hill (made easy by the extra golf cart our friend had loaned us!) to make breakfast for the crew. We had breakfast burritos and sausage balls. The burritos are scrambled eggs, sausage, and cheese in a soft tortilla - campin' food! After fueling ourselves up, we gathered our gear, packed a crap-ton of lunch food in coolers and headed for the dock where the boat was parked. (maybe "moored" is the right word? I have no clue - I'm definitely not a boat-person) We headed out on the boat into Dale Hollow Lake and headed straight for "The Cliffs" and dropped anchor there.
I knew Ken and the kids would be all over this, so I made sure to bring my (waterproof) camera (sorry, no pro shots there!). The tallest cliff is about 40 feet above the water, and the gang spent quite a long time jumping from the various levels.
After they exhausted themselves jumping, we swam back to the boat and took off to find a cove to eat our picnic lunch. I don't recall
exactly, but I'm pretty sure some of them tubed behind the boat on the way there. Once we munched down lunch of sandwiches, fruit, and chips, and swam in the cove for a while, we headed back onboard the boat to tube some more. The kids and one of the adults (ahem . . Ken) tubed in various combinations the rest of the day until just before sunset. That evening, we made pie iron pizzas over the campfire and had ice cream too. The kids took turns driving the golf carts around the campground while the adults sat around the fire enjoying our adult beverages. The campground was having karaoke, so we had entertainment too! We were all pretty exhausted from a very full day in the sun, so we headed back down the hill to our waterfront RV site and went to bed.
On Sunday, we were up early, showered and making our pancake breakfast as quickly as we could so that we could get back to the Cliffs. Ken opted to stay behind in the RV and grade some papers for school until lunch. We went to the Cliffs to let the kids jump before it got too busy with other people. It worked out because there were only a few other people there and the kids jumped their butts off. Just before lunch we pulled several of the kids on the tube as we headed back to the dock to pick up Ken, and then we set off to our private cove for another picnic lunch. We floated, swam, built, and later attacked forts on our private island. Because he missed it earlier in the morning, Ken insisted that we head back to the Cliffs for more jumping. Okay then, more jumping. :) At this point in the afternoon there were probably 40 boats in the cove where the Cliffs are, so we dropped anchor on the edge of them all and swam in to the jumping area. After probably another hour or two of jumping, we swam back to the boat for more tubing. We tubed until the sun set on the horizon (after 5 pm) and we were finally forced back to the dock because we were hungry and ready for supper: grilled hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob, and watermelon. Of course, we topped it off with ice cream, and the adults sat around chatting before driving to the karaoke show again. After karaoke, we went back to the trailer to sit on the outdoor deck for more chatting before heading to bed.
The next morning, we cleaned up the RV, the trailer, and the boat. Getting ready to go home was a real bummer because it had been such a perfect weekend. Ken made a traditional southern breakfast of fried bologna and biscuits for everyone (I had cereal). After saying our thank yous and good byes, we drove the RV out of the resort to make the 3 hour and 40 minute road trip back home. Of course, we hit traffic again (the Ohio Navy, as they call it, heading back home), but we made it home in pretty good time. All in all, it was a fabulous weekend on the lake and we will DEFINITELY be going back again!
