Tenessee Pride

Sunday morning came fast. I was up somewhere near 6am in an effort to leave the house by 9am. But before then, we had lots to do. Aside from the usual stuff, we had to load the Trooper and boat with all of our vacation gear. And by the looks of it, that was gonna take some time. I was done with my run by 8am. I hurried through a shower and then began loading up all of our gear. Most was already to go save for the refrigerated foods Mindy was putting in the coolers. I was anxious about the number of food tubs and coolers we had. I was most concerned about the weight. Towing four bodies along with all of our gear worried me. We filled three large tubs with dry goods and three large coolers with frozen/refridgeable goods. And that didn’t include all the beer, pop, wine, and water. Holy smoke! We managed to store most the stuff in the boat. The Trooper houses our suitcases. We had one extra large suit case stuffed full of nothing but towels. The house we rented warned that they no longer supplied them. We were ready to go by 9:00am as planned. But we were waiting on Rene, who last we knew was riding with us. Mindy later discovered a text message on her phone indicating that she’d be heading down later in the day on her own after working until 3am the night before. We hit the road around 9:15am. The first 50 miles went slow. Seemed to take forever. We had to pull off at the first rest area to re-snap one of the boat cover snaps that had vibrated loose. I planned to stop again in Lexington for gas and lunch. That’s about 190 miles from home. Jacob, meanwhile, had other ideas He wanted to stop for lunch just after Cincy. I felt as though we were just getting warmed up. I won the war but apparently not before pissing Mindy and the kids off. We finally stopped halfway through Lexington. We stopped a bout ten miles sooner than I had hoped because the boat cover snaps popped off again. If you don’t re-snap them, the top could potentially get ripped off by the wind. We ate at McDonald’s and gased up at a Shell station. I had a double quarter pounder with cheese. Yummy! We had to stop two more times to re-snap the top about 25-30 miles apart. It was getting ridiculous. I had meant to pack some duct tape but didn’t. Now we were looking for it at gas stations. Much to my surprise, just south of the Lake Cumberland exit in KY, Mindy found some at a Stop N’ Go type place. A couple pieces of duct tape later the problem was solved. The top didn’t budge the rest of the way in. We were all getting exited about getting to our destination. We found exit #134 with no trouble. According to mapquest, we were supposed to take Rt 63 east for about 16.9 miles. We went through La Follette and past the Super Wal-Mart Laura Morse spoke of. So far, so good. That’s when the fun began. We were looking for a given street name but never happened up on it. And I never accurately monitored the mileage after exiting the freeway to determine if we had gone passed our destination. Shit. I asked Mindy to see if she still had Laura’s number in her phone. She did. After placing a call we learned that we had passed it up by several miles. Crap! Back tracking about 5 or 6 miles we found our turn-off. The street wasn’t marked. Hello! The directions we borderline hilarious from that point forward – turn at the second church – not the first. Follow that until you come to a fork in the road. Go left – not right and uphill. What she failed to tell us was that the road turned into one single lane spiraling tightly & steeply down a mountain side with multiple hair pin turns at the bottom. It got so treacherous that my brakes wouldn’t even stop us. I was in full panic mode! So, in other words, I was swearing like sailor! I asked for complete and utter silence as we attempted to navigate the seemingly impassable road. At one point, we had to stop for a horse who was wondering in the road. Finally, after much consternation, we found our lakeside house. The only trouble was that it sat high on a hill with a steep, gravely drive. It didn’t appear that there was anyway possible for us to make it safely up with the boat, not to mention our heavy load. Mindy and the kids exited while simply stopped out front still in the road. After closely inspecting the terrain I figured I’d give it a try. There was a flat spot at the top of the drive - enough room for the Trooper. The boat, if I made it, would still be hanging off the back on the steep incline. Here goes nothing! I put the Trooper in four-wheel and low gear and charge up the hill. Somehow we made it. God was smiling on me for certain. I was still a bit shaken, but also relieved to be there in one piece. My only remaining concern was my brakes. I worried that they were shot. I used the emergency brake and chalked the boat trailer tires. I went inside to join the family, who reported the house being very nice inside. We carried in all of our gear. It was nice. Three levels – master suite on the third floor A-frame overlooking the lake through two stories of glass. The one immediate draw back aside from the steep gravely drive was that the thick trees hid a direct view of the lake. After carrying in all of our gear we walked down to the lake to check out our dock. It was a steep walk down a wooded path but nothing too ridiculous. The water level was down just as Laura had passively mentioned. My best guess was about ten feet. Lots of large Shale rock and lots of red clay. But the water was clear and warm, and the dock in great shape. I was pleased. Looking down the shoreline, there many other nearby lakeside homes and docks. Most were over the top nice with multiple levels, slides, canopies and such. Ours would be just fine, I figured. I think both Mindy and I were a little disappointed that we couldn’t’ see the beautiful lake from our deck with out stretching our neck. We also didn’t expect the road to be between our house and the water but it was, despite it being a single lane road in the woods. We’d make do. It wasn’t long before Rene showed up. Bella and I were off on a walk to see if we could find the neighborhood boat launch. Mindy was certain that Laura informed her that it was very close by. We walked just a few hundred yards but turned around. I’d ask Mindy to call her again later. After a few beers and some hot dogs I felt 100 times better about things. We had fun through the evening hours chatting on the deck.