Day 1, Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky

Day 1 – Travel Day

Some things never change. Already the O’Hara’s are waiting for the Woods. Departure time is 8:30. Chris calls and says we’ll be “5-10” minutes late. A half an hour later they were there to pick up the O’Hara’s. Here is Chris’s story: “The clock radio (which must be possessed) went off at 3:30 instead of 7:45. You know I have a hard time seeing that one to reset it so I took it in the bathroom (so I wouldn’t wake up Jeff). I left it in the bathroom and we didn’t hear it when it went off at 7:45. I woke up to a quiet ‘beep, beep, beep, at 8:15.” No worries! This trip is all about taking it a day at a time and not having a schedule!

Now we’re on our way. The first stop we’ll call the “weight distribution” stop. The trailer is swaying some so we need to take some weight out of it and add it to the back of the Lexus. This was all good until Jeff told us all to get in individually so he could see how low the Lexus was going to sink. “Chris, get in! Chris, I said get in!” After thinking about it, she climbed in and Jeff determined that she could still go along He got in and we were once again on our way.

We’re hungry! Lunch at Denny’s. That was pretty uneventful. Chris was a little perplexed when the waitress asked her if she wanted grits or hash browns. We hadn’t even hit Kentucky yet.

There were a few tense moments when we left Denny’s. Kevin was taking his turn at the wheel. It requires a certain amount of skill to drive a Lexus with a big trailer attached to the back of it. Jeff was very good at making suggestions to him regarding what he was doing wrong or should be doing differently. At one point Kevin said, “I can see this isn’t going to last very long.” They both eventually settled in. Jeff got distracted on his computer and Kevin was able to drive for a while with not too many suggestions.

You might wonder what Chris and Lana were doing all this time. They read, slept and watched movies. Chris plowed her way through a weeks worth of newspapers. Things were lost in her piles, but eventually recovered. “Broken Flowers” is a stupid movie with no ending. They recommend “Just Like Heaven” with Reese Witherspoon. They still have a few minutes left in it, but are confident that there will be a happy ending.

We finally reached our destination, the Hillman Ferry campground in the Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky. It’s 5:30, and we don’t have much daylight left. Jeff and Lana hop out of the Lexus and approach the entrance station where they need to check in. Louise is very nice and helpful. She looks a little skeptical when the man from Iowa asks if they have cable and wi-fi. She kind of laughs behind her hand and says “no, sorry.” Oh well, we can still do this. It takes a half hour to check in and find our camping spot.

Now we face our first challenge – backing the trailer into the spot. Jeff is at the wheel and Kevin is standing behind wildly waving his arms. Of course the trailer sits too high for Jeff to be able to see Kevin. Jeff is getting a little tense and shouts, “I could use some audible directions.” At this point, Chris and Lana are ready to jump in and are more than happy to tell him what to do. We found out that Jeff does have a little bit of an anal side to him when he insisted that the trailer be lined up perfectly parallel to the side rails. Evidently you look more like professional campers if your camper isn’t crooked in your spot.

This four person team had no trouble setting up camp. The pop-up popped up just like it should and we got all settled in.

Now we’re hungry again. The Cubs are on TV at 9 and we don’t have cable so we’ll go into Grand Rivers (a small town 5 miles away) and find a sports bar where we can watch some of the game and get something to eat. On our way out, we again stop at the entrance station to get some advice about where to go. He didn’t laugh, but we could tell he wanted to. You know, they don’t have sports bars in Grand Rivers . . . they don’t even have bars. In fact, they don’t have sports bars or bars anywhere within a 30 mile radius. We have landed in a “dry county” right in the middle of the Bible Belt. Imagine that! The Woods and the O’Hara’s in a beerless county!

Once we got over the shock, we decided to concentrate on finding food. Guess what? It’s 8:00 and the doors are already locked on the only restaurant we can find. But no worries. Remember this whole trip is one without a plan so we will improvise. We’ll go back and eat turkey sandwiches.

About 10:30 it started to feel like bedtime. Kevin, Jeff, and Chris popped their usual Tylenol PM’s and Lana, keeping with the spirit of the adventure, decided she might as well try one. Sleep came quickly to this weary group. There were occasional trips made outside for relief purposes and everyone could feel the pop-up shift a little when someone rolled over. That is, everyone but Lana. She decided those Tylenol PM’s must not be too bad if they can make you sleep like that!

We survived our first night! Everyone woke up well rested. There are still some issues we are trying to work out with the porta potty (Lana and Chris only use it under the cover of darkness). We are learning to be organized; we cooked our first breakfast and are ready to face Day 2.