We stayed at the Lure Lodge in the Kentucky State park from Saturday July 11th to Monday July 13th. We had a great trip! 99% of the time we boat in Ohio River in Cincinnati, but for the past 5 weeks the river has been way above pool level and completely unusable to us. With another terrible river forecast scheduled for the weekend my wife and I decided that we were fed up and ready to head to the lake for the weekend. We left early Saturday morning and drove down to the Kentucky State park on Lake Cumberland.
On our first day we went to Conley Bottoms area of the lake. There were some very large patches of debris fields along the way, but for the most part if we stayed on the upwind side of the lake things were generally clear with only the occasional debris field. However, on the downwind side of the shores things were really clogged up.
Our 1st dinner; We decided to eat at the State Dock Grill located on the State Dock our 1st night. The place was pretty much empty at 6pm when most restaurants should be packed on a Saturday night, that should have been our first tip of what we were in for. After waiting for 5 minutes for someone to seat us (while we were standing next to the sign that said "Please wait to be seated") a young waitress finally came up and said, "oh, just seat yourself anywhere". Eventually she showed up to take our order which wasn't too sophisticated. 2 orders of chicken tenders for our youngest kids, 2 hamburgers 1 each for my daughter and I and a chicken tender salad for my wife and a cheese stick appetizer. When the cheese sticks came out they were basically uncooked in the middle and still pretty much just chilled cheese (this should have been our 2nd tip that something was wrong) we went ahead and ate them figuring that cheese couldn't hurt us even if it was under cooked. When our orders came out I started to cut up our 3 year old's chicken tenders only to notice that 2 of the 3 of them were raw inside. We checked my wife's chicken salad and found raw meat and 1 of the 3 of my daughter's chicken tenders were raw inside. We called the waitress back and she wasn't phased at all and said she would bring us some fully cooked chicken. Within several minutes she was back and the chicken looked cooked, but we had pretty much lost our appetite. The waitress never bothered to come back and check if everything was ok with our 2nd order, and no manager ever came out to apologize for the raw chicken. I generally have a no complaint policy while I am on vacation and I really just try to go with the flow of things around me, but I started to get upset when she brought us our check and there wasn't even a discount for getting raw chicken and having to wait 10+ minutes for another batch to come out. I asked her about a discount, she said she couldn't give us one, I asked about a manager, she said there wasn't one working. This whole time she was acting like she couldn't believe that I was a little upset about all of the raw chicken they tried to feed us. I decided that I would pay for the meal, tip her 10% instead of my usual 20%+ (even though the raw chicken wasn't her fault, her total lack of concern over the whole thing really bothered me) and I decided that I wouldn't eat there anymore and I would make it a point to tell everyone I know going to Lake Cumberland not to waste their time and money at the State Dock Grill. Obviously the locals and people who keep their boats there already know this information as seen by the complete lack of customers there at prime time on a Saturday night.
After our dining experience the first evening, we decided to go wakeboarding in the creek behind State Dock and Jamestown (the same creek where the boat ramp is located) this proved to be a good decision as we had pretty calm water and fairly debris free water as well.
The next day was Sunday and we woke up to HEAVY rain and thunderstorms headed straight for us. We hung out in our room overlooking the lake and watched the big houseboats coming in get blown all around while trying to navigate back to the dock. After a little while I took the kids down to the indoor pool and hot tub. They had an absolute blast, but as soon as the weather cleared we were back on the lake. We needed fuel for the day so we headed to the gas dock. A young man was waiting on us to pull up and was very helpful docking the boat as we ran into a lot of small debris by the fuel dock and both engines were clogged by the time we made it in to fuel. He gave us advice on clear water spots and was all around good at small talk and giving us a number of things to see and do. Gas was $3.99/gallon for 90 octane ethanol free gas, which is the same as it is at the dock on the Ohio River. After fueling I slid in behind a houseboat leaving and thankfully he pushed enough of the debris out of the way for us to make it to the end of the no wake zone incident free. We did still have some slight cavitation when we tried to get on plane and had to clean out the plugs before getting going, but it wasn't terrible. We headed towards the dam with our ultimate goal being 76 falls. We took our time getting back there and found that there were only 4 or 5 houseboats tied up along the banks, the usual hordes of small craft were not there, the earlier rain must have scared them off the water for the day. I would highly recommend a trip back to 76 falls for anyone visiting Lake Cumberland. We stopped at Grider Hill for dinner on our way back to State Dock. Their restaurant isn't fancy, but the food is cooked to order and everyone was pleased with what they got to eat. I would HIGHLY recommend the cheesy bacon french fries for an appetizer or even a meal. Their cheese steak was good and my wife said the chicken tender salad was fantastic. The kids all got desert which included some kind of 7 layer chocolate cake and a cheesecake, but I can't remember what flavor. They loved the dessert. Leaving Grider Hill we were treated to a beautiful sunset and calm and mostly clear water all the way back to State Dock.
On Monday we decided to stay close and swim, tube and wakeboard. We spent most of the day back what I believe is called McFarland Creek. When we were ready to call it a day I said that I would wakeboard out of the creek back to the main body of water. It was a fun idea and almost worked out, but just as we were almost back to the main body of water a debris field that wasn't there earlier obstructed the WHOLE entrance to the creek. My wife tried valiantly to make it through the debris field, but there was just too much stuff. I was wakeboarding behind the boat and heard both engines start to vibrate/cavitate loudly before I even saw the debris field. She cut the power to the engines immediately and I made my way back to the boat. Somehow amid all of the debris a piece had lodged itself somewhere in the gate/throttle cable of the starboard engine, and wouldn't allow us to move the starboard engine out of forward. I looked everywhere but could not find the obstruction to the gate. After clearing all of the debris from the clean out ports we started the port engine and moved along at idle speed occasionally trying to move the starboard throttle back to neutral, after a couple of minutes of working the controls whatever it was that was stuck came free and we had full control over both throttles again. We headed out to the main lake for one more 15 minute swim and then headed back home around 5pm on Monday night.
All in all we had a Fantastic trip. Sure there was some debris, but nothing as dangerous as we would have had back home on the Ohio River. I'm thankful that we live so close to such a magnificent body of water that is accessible for weekends. If Cumberland was 1.5 hrs away from home instead of 3.5 hrs away I could easily see us making the trip every weekend.
Here is a video I was able to put together of the trip. You can see the smiles on the kids' faces that show a good time was had by all!
