Camping at Eureka Campground

Hey, Y’all!! I hope you’ve enjoyed my recollections of our Summer happenings thus far as much as I have enjoyed sharing them.  It’s rather hard to believe we are at the end of 2020.  To say this has been a year we will never forget is probably the biggest understatement I could make.  While it’s been quite unforgettable for many negative reasons…biggest one of which for us was losing our Grannie Annie…we also have had many positively unforgettable moments.  Most of these are centered around camping and all of the amazing friends we made.  But, before I get to that I want to share our time at Eureka Campground in Kuttawa, KY.

Like I’d mentioned in my previous post, “Let’s go camping!“, our second trip in our little Jayco was to Eureka Campground.  The picture above is the sunset from the first night there.  Man, am I a sucker for a beautiful sunrise or sunset!  They stop me in my tracks no matter what I’m in the middle of doing.  I tend to just stare out into the sky, in awe of the beauty that only a Mighty God like ours could create.  In those moments, my mind often goes into the realization of how vast our world is…and, yet, He took the time to create little ‘ole me.  Actually, it’s not just a beautiful sunrise or sunset that will take me to those kinds of thoughts…the beauty of nature, alone, will take me there also.  But, I digress.

Back to the subject of this post…Eureka Campground!  Our site for the week was number 6.  It’s a back-in site with a great view of the water, as can be seen in the picture above.  During the time we were there, which was the middle of July, it is also a FULL SUN site!  This means even with our awning out, we were unable to escape sitting right in the sun.  Even though we love the heat of summer and seek out the sun, we do not enjoy being IN the sun for the entire day.  Luckily, we found a remedy to that situation after a couple of days of being there.  

The sites on either side of us were each occupied by more mature couples. This tickled us since we fit right in with the older generations who have no children, make little-to-no noise and keep mostly to themselves.  At this point in our camping, we ticked all of those boxes quite easily.

The couple on site 7, to our left, were camping with friends who were on the site to the left of them.  They all left out after we’d been there a couple of days so they could get back home to tend their gardens.  As nice and quiet as they were, their leaving meant we could freely utilize all of the waterfront area in front of their sites, which was shaded by lots of trees.  Remember me mentioning we found a remedy to the no shade situation at our site?!  Well, this was it.  We took an outdoor rug, chairs, Coonie’s laying pad and ourselves right down to the edge of the water the morning they left and we stayed there all.  day.  LONG!  Oh man, was it peaceful!  Even though we saw several bass boats, and a couple of recreational boaters out tubing and such, the traffic on the water was minimal.  There were three white Pelicans that would come off the island out from the campground in the morning, and make their way over towards the riprap near the Dam.  Only once while we were there did they come close enough for me to see them without the aide of my binoculars.  Silly, birds! Didn’t they know they had an observer on the shoreline that’s borderline crazy about Pelicans??  Other than that, not much to look at except for the beauty that was the water and the day we were blessed with.  And, we certainly had zero issues with either!

Even though I am much more of a “doer” than a “sitter”, I quite enjoyed the slowness of the two days we spent sitting in that spot.  So often, I feel like we all miss so many of the small pleasures in life because we are so busy rushing here and there, doing this or that!  Or, we have our faces shoved into our phones….all the while missing the world around us!  Our life here is fleeting.  Why are we determined to NOT take it all in, to ignore the true beauties of our world, to rush around through life with our faces stuck in devices looking at something (a large amount of nothing, truly!) that will likely have zero positive impact on our life???  All the while, we are missing the greatest experiences.  We are missing the small things, too…which in reality are actually the big things.  I used to be one of those that would stare at my phone from the moment I got in the car, until the moment we arrived at our location.  Tom would get so aggravated at me.  “You’re missing everything staring at that phone!”.  At first, I was like “What?!  The same road I’ve been down thousands of times???”  But, then I started listening to what he was really trying to tell me.  I was actually missing my time with him.  I was missing little conversations that we could be having along our drive about whatever it may be that we saw, or may spark a conversation. I was missing a LOT!  So, I put my phone down.  In fact, we make a conscious effort to NOT be on our phones when we are together.  I know, I have rambled off from my subject.  I’d apologize, but I feel like it was important to mention since it was laid on my heart as my fingers typed it all out. 

Once again…back to Eureka.  

Even though we mostly enjoyed our time at Eureka, we came to realize that we would likely not be frequenting the campground often.  Like I’d mentioned before, it’s a smaller campground.  Which is mostly a positive to us, except that it also means there are less walking/biking areas. However, there is a 2.5 mile wooded trail that we didn’t venture down.  It didn’t appear to be well-used or maintained, and this chick isn’t about to go through the woods where there could be snakes and not have a clear walking path.  Nope.  Not happening!  We also noticed leniency to some of the campsite rules.  And, even though we aren’t the rules police, we feel like certain rules should be upheld so that everyone has a better chance of having an enjoyable time.

All-in-all, we had a nice stay.  But, we were very much looking forward to getting back to the Canal Campground which, coincidentally, you can see from Eureka Campground.  Yep!  They are catty-corner across the lake from one another!  In the picture below, on the other shoreline…that’s Green Turtle Bay in the middle, and the shoreline of the Canal Campground is to its left…beckoning us to return.

Come back soon to find out about what ended up being an unforgettable Summer and the amazing friends we made.

Happy New Year!!!!
XOXO,T