Labor Weekend of Camping & Boating

We took advantage of the long holiday weekend and drove up to Dale Hollow Lake. We had reservations at Lillydale State Park and we were certainly pleased with the campsite and our scenery!

One of the BEST parts of camping is Greg's breakfast cookin'. He can make everything taste good coming off the camp stove. Morning #1 was burritos with cheese & egg. A great cup of coffee, too...what service!

We arrived with barely enough daylight to set up camp on Friday night, so our first opportunity to see around was at breakfast on Saturday morning.
We spent almost the entire day on the lake although we had a slow start. We had to finish setting up camp and get the boat into the water. Rachel was out of sorts from exhaustion after a full week of kindergarten. By mid-day the weather improved and we stopped at a marina for ice cream.

On Sunday the weather was not as nice. It was misty and rainy most of the morning. We headed out on the lake with a mist in the air. By lunch time it was clear and partly sunny. We toured all over the place, stopping to swim in calm coves. We had two excellent evenings at the campsite. We had traditional meals of brats and hot dogs followed by toasting marshmellows over the campfire.

I was pretty impressed with how easily and quickly the kids fell asleep in the tent. Rachel quickly determined a "girls' side" and "boys' side" of the tent. We placed our sleeping bags accordingly and everyone slept well from dust to dawn.

On our boat ride on Monday morning, I tried to capture the change of color. Fall is definitely starting to show and the trees sporadically jumped out us with red or orange bursts of color.

Monday morning greeted us with beautiful weather and a very calm, still lake. We quickly ate breakfast and then got into the boat for Greg to ski a few times more. We swam for longer than planned and the kids and I rode in the intertube all the way back to the campground.

One of the features of this camp ground was being able to park the boat on the shore infront of our site. Greg worked hard to clear a rock-free path to the shore for the boat. It was a challenge. Here's Greg checking for scapes on the boat before driving home on Monday afternoon.