Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky
I watched the sunset reflected in the lake. Then my dog and I kept walking down the path through the most beautiful campground I had ever seen.
We had been out with the cat earlier. Safe in his harness, he had rolled in the clover, stalked beetles, and tangled his 16-foot leash in the underbrush while pretending to be a camouflaged tiger.
My parents discovered Land Between the Lakes after I left home. It had been developed as a recreation area in 1961 through the Tennessee Valley Authority. My parents drove to the little park on the Kentucky-Tennessee border each spring to enjoy the flowering dogwood along the roadways, and again each fall when the leaves changed.
I added it to my itinerary one May because I wanted to see the place my parents had loved so. As I drove east, I enjoyed seeing the progress of the springtime and listening to Jan Karon’s Mitford books on tape. I stopped at the Entrance Station, registered at Hillman Ferry Campground, and headed out to see the sights.
I wandered the Nature Station for about 20 minutes. The wolf presentation consisted of a volunteer ranger with a bowl of kibble. She tossed snacks to the red wolf, while explaining he was there only for breeding purposes.
I gently asked, “Do you think you might manage more breeding if he weren’t alone here?”
The ranger wasn’t amused; the other tourists were. The explanation offered that there were already too many red wolves, so they weren’t breeding them.
At the visitor center, I asked why there are more than 200 cemeteries within the recreation area grounds.
Without missing a beat, the ranger responded, “Lots of dead people.” He went on to explain that they had moved several tiny, family cemeteries when they built the dam.
Driving through the dogwood the next morning, I couldn’t keep from singing:
Fair are the meadows; fairer still the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring!
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer;
He makes the woeful spirit sing.
( “Fairest Lord Jesus,” 17th century German Jesuits)
