Hey, Hey Harrison Bay

Great weekend!  Have to update you that we never made the camping trip with our granddaughters due to late work on the van for the wheel bearing repair.  We spent the time instead watching the Minions movie and baking brownies and cupcakes (just a little mishap that involved brownie dough, a ziplock “pastry” bag that didn’t lock and clean-up on Aisle 4).

Back to this weekend … we started things off on Friday by hosting a back-to-school lunch for some of our former teaching colleagues on the deck.  Everyone was surprisingly excited to talk about a new, upbeat start to the year with a new administration and some needed changes in philosophy.  Good company and good food.  Bernie presented us with two t-shirts we love: “Retired Teacher – Every Child Left Behind.”  We will be thinking about them on Monday morning when we don’t get up early and head to school to greet new students. Our best wishes for a stress-free and successful year for our friends in the classroom.

Then we packed up the van, car, paddleboards, pets and bikes to head up to the Chattanooga area to camp the weekend and visit with my son, his girlfriend and her parents. Sort of a last-minute reservation, but we were surprised to find a really nice location on Chickamauga Lake in Harrison Bay State Park.  The lake is beautiful, but our loop of the campground is mid-renovation.  That meant that this very wooded site had just had it’s water and electric service upgraded and all the roads and campsites were pretty much torn up, with lots of gravel spread around everywhere.  Plus, these pull-through sites and access were pretty tight and none really level.  But Jackie knows her stuff and she got the leveling blocks under the wheels and hydraulic lifts so we were level in no time.  We scouted around the park on bikes to learn that there are much nicer sites, some along the waterfront, that we might consider for next visit.

Saturday was a good time for paddling around the lake edges, with lots of wake waves to negotiate (oops, fell a rare time).  Alex, Bethany and her parents gave it a try and were pretty good at it.  We spent the evening finishing off the salads left from lunch and several delicious rib-eyes, with stories about Bethany and Alex’s time in Spain this summer.  Did I mention that he really did run with the bulls in Pamplona? (well, he admits it was behind the bulls).  Sangria was the celebratory drink of the evening, complimented by some Manchego cheese.

Well, what should be our next adventure?