Until next season. . .Saturday Day in the Life

 

We all have our favorite days of the year. . .birthdays, holidays, events, first day on the lake. . .Saturday was the opposite of that - the last day of our boating season.  

8 a.m. - look at the beautiful colors on the road. . .

I think I've mentioned before that Dale Hollow Lake is approximately two hours from our house so a "day on the lake" always includes the 4 hours to and from - we have been doing this for ten years now.  We still think the lake and location are our best option - when we lived in Ohio the drive was 5-ish hours (one way so we only made it about 2x/yr) but our Cookeville house was literally one hour from "driveway to drop in" so we've done it all but live on the lake!

Tailgating our breakfast at Buc-ee's :)

 

Pulling her out of her dry storage and pulling her down to the marina.

We pull out of Sunset Marina - it was a quiet day!!

It was just Tom and I - all the kids now have "all the plans" on the weekends. . .this is kind of a lonely season of life, when the last 20-ish years have been so FULL of kids - we are still trying to adjust and figure it out.  But then I had my choice of seating for the entire day so there's that. . .

8:47 a.m. CST (we gain an hour going from EST to CST) - funny enough, as empty as the lake is/was, the trailer lot was FULL so Tom had to park up the hill - we did see quite a few fishermen out there.  I'm certain the temperature got up to about eighty degrees although I think Tom said the water temperature was seventy degrees.  Luckily there was never a reason to get in/get wet.

After a little ride it was time to clean all the surfaces - he tackled the back and I got the front.  It wasn't too bad - just "regular" dirt and grime from a season of use.

A little soaking in the sun and cracking open my new book!

10:22. . .off for another ride.

Mike's Landing at Sulpher Creek - our sometimes-stop on the lake.  This location is in Kentucky.  Dale Hollow boarders TN and KY - when we lived in Ohio we launched from Wolf River in Albany, KY. . .since we've been in Tennessee we launch from Byrdstown, TN. These marinas are all in small towns in these states which makes DHL such a gem.

Toasting and sending a picture to our traveling friends - we never made it out to the lake together this year (we have the past two years) - the weather in 2025 was tricky. . .we didn't get out the months of July or September.  That is unheard-of!!  We tentatively put a 2026 weekend on the calendar already - I want to do a tour of all the marinas on the lake which should take a full two days I think.

We asked them if they could put the Vandy game on - we left when they were tied up.  So happy to get off the lake a couple hours later and find out they had WON!!  Seems the last time they won this matchup (against LSU) was the year I graduated high school!!  

Good-bye until next year!  And our shirts say, "we have hope in you Vols" - that was NOT a good part of our day, their loss to Alabama later that night.

Haul her in. . .but the work isn't over. . .

Time to winterize - I sent the below picture to our family group chat:

"Have tools, will travel" - ha!

Earlier that week he had taken a day off work to head to Chatt to help Robert with some of his equipment and Robert shared about the same thing - Tom's definitely an organized mechanic on the road :)
This gave me about an hour and a half to read :). I think I napped too ;)

4:30 p.m. - all closed up and tucked away for the winter. . .until next season, God willing.

6:55 p.m. - 11 hours later the sky looked a bit different as we pulled back into our neighborhood:

Got the laptop set up for the Third Saturday in October. . .fire started, cocktails, and s'mores (for me). . .

Had to get up and take a walk - at this point we were tied

At 10 p.m. I couldn't take it anymore. . .we just did NOT show up ready to play - had to call it a night.

I posted this picture on FB the next morning next to the one taken 24 hours prior (driving to the lake) - I think it perfectly depicted all of our moods after that game :(

Saturday while we were living it up on the quiet lake, my USTA 7.5 40+ women's team was competing in the state match here in Knoxville - I was up bright and early Sunday morning to play in the semi-finals with this good friend/teammate:

We lost our court in a match tiebreak (we were playing short sets since we were rained out and I think that made a difference) but the other two courts WON so we all went to lunch together and came back for the finals at 1 p.m.

Although we are all smiles here, we lost to a very good Memphis team - it was a battle we could be proud of though!  

Friday afternoon I also played for our team and ran into a Cookeville tennis friend who was there with her USTA 6.5 team.

She and I are going to play in a tournament together in South Carolina next year.

There you have it - a Day in the Life with a little Friday and Sunday sprinkled in :). A weekend full of some of my favorite things - tennis and the lake.  

Who else can hardly believe we are in the 4th quarter of 2025???

Love,

Jenni