Dale Hollow Lake - Boys Island - July 31 to August 2, 2015

Location - Dale Hollow Lake - State Park, near Albany KY

Mileage - 293 miles round trip.
Weather - sunny all weekend.  High 88 during day, Low 59 during the night.
Clothing - quick dry shorts and tshirt.  I also brought an additional tshirt, swimming trunks, and a rainjacket.
Shoes - Keen Sandals all weekend.  I discovered that they're best as water shoes.
Hammock Camping! - It was a hammock camping weekend.
Sleeping bag - Fleece sleeping bag liner.  Good to about 65
Camping pad - Didn't use one.
Main Activity - Fishing and playing in the water.  Canoeing and Kayaking on the lake.  I cooked supper on Saturday night.
Extra Gear - We had no extra gear.  Everything was transported to the campsite by Canoe or Kayak.  No room for extra gear.  We put our gear in cat litter containers.  It worked perfectly!  Everything fit.
Nights Camping - 2
Big Thing to Learn - Hammock camping is different than tent camping.  When you lay down for the night in a hammock, you may be hot, but by 3 AM, you'll be cold.  I showed up for the weekend with shorts, t-shirt, rain coat, no socks, and sandals.  I had a fleece bag liner.  The first night I was very cold.  I went to bed wearing my tshirt, shorts and that was it.  I left the bag hanging over my hammock in the ridge line so I could get to it easily when it got cold.  By 4 AM, I had the fleece bag over my head while trying to stay warm.  It didn't really work.  
The second night I went to bed wearing my tshirt, shorts and my rain coat.  I also tied a bandana over my head and ears.  This kept bugs out of my ears at night.  By the morning I woke up mostly warm.
The next time I hammock camp, I will have the convertible pants with the bottom part on my legs.  I wore the convertibles, but left the bottom part at home.  I could also bring a fleece jacket to wear to bed.  This will keep my upper torso warm.  I am planning on bringing wool socks to wear to bed even if I don't wear them during the day.  I think if I had all of that I will keep warm.  I think I could also be warmer if I took a small camp pad to keep under my back and butt.
I also have to do a better job tying the hammock.  I learned a lot this past weekend.  I retied it a few times.  I put a strap on the trees and clip on each end of the strap.  Then tie a ridge line between the carabiners.  Then I can clip the hammock on the carabiners.  I was doing it a little different at first, but that seems to be the best way to hang a hammock.
Total nights camping so far this year - 15 after this trip.

I got a call from my friend Dustin on Tuesday.  He asked me if the boys and I would like to go camping with him and his son that weekend.  Thomas politely declined, but Tyler agreed that it would be fun.  From the beginning we knew we were going to be man camping.  This meant canoeing or kayaking from the parking lot to the campsite.  We would carry all our gear in the boats.  We would fish all day, but bring enough food with us just in case we didn't catch anything.  Good thing we did that too, because we didn't catch anything.  When you go primitive camping at a lake, it is the most important that you bring a water filter.  Boiling water would have worked, but we could have gotten sick if we had forgotten the filter.  

This is the campsite.  The island we camped on was called Boys Island.  It is right beside Trooper Island at Dale Hollow Lake State Resort.  Half the island is in Kentucky and the other half in Tennessee.  Most of our gear was transported to the island in the yellow cat litter buckets that are in this picture.

We hung 4 hammocks on 4 trees.  That means that 3 of us shared one tree. I took the picture above with my phone at about 6 AM on Sunday morning with the part of the camera you take a selfie with.  I was actually laying in my hammock when I took this.  Everyone else was still asleep.

On Saturday morning, we had dehydrated meals that you can buy at a big brand store.  I put too much water in mine, but it was okay.  I also drank Starbucks instant coffee, which, btw, it much better than lugging a percolator on a camping trip.  It is actually good coffee.  After we ate, we allowed the boys to go down to the bay and kayak around in the area until we got there.

We got all our fishing poles ready, and headed over to an island in Tennessee where we could swim and fish.  We found out really early that the fishing was difficult that weekend because of the heat and because of the boat traffic on the water.  The lake was full of boats.  We swam at the island for a few hours, and we practiced flipping over the kayaks.  Since the wake that is caused by the boats is very dangerous and can flip a canoe or kayak very easily, I wanted to make sure I knew if I could get back in a kayak if we flipped.  Luckily we were never flipped by the wake.  The best way to not flip is by turning the front of your canoe or kayak into the wake.  You need to face into the wake in order to not flip.  By the time the weekend was over, Tyler and I were very much more comfortable with any kind of wake coming at us.  It was no problem.

I really like this picture of Tyler.

This is a picture of Tyler fishing.  He was using a closed face fishing reel.  We haven't been fishing a lot, so he had a lot of fun with it this weekend, even though he didn't catch very much.

We went back to the campsite at lunch time, and as we approached the bay, we noticed a few pontoon boats in the bay.  I think they were surprised to see people camping there.  Lunch was summer sausage and wheat crackers, and we also had chips and salsa.  I was very satisfied with lunch.

After lunch, we kind of had a lazy afternoon.  Dustin moved his hammock to the shoreline of the bay.  This allowed him to keep an eye on the canoe and kayaks.  He laid in his hammock and actually slept while the people from the pontoon boats played in the water.  Before he went to sleep, he overheard a woman from one of the pontoons say, "HEY LOOK, THERE IS A MAN IN A HAM-MOCK OVER THERE.  AND LOOK, THERE IS ANOTHER MAN IN A HAM-MOCK UP THERE."  We laughed about that for the rest of the weekend.

About 3 PM, we ventured out in the canoe and kayaks again to try to catch some fish.  We went around to the the side of Trooper Island where the boat dock is.  Dustin had caught some really big fish there a few years ago.  However, it was very windy right there, and the speed boats going by that part of the island didn't have to slow down, so the wake made it difficult to stay in one spot to fish.  We went around the island completely and headed back to the campsite.  

Even though we didn't have fresh fish to cook, we still had food.  I cooked. I made french fried potatoes and onions.  I brought 5 or 6 potatoes from home and one onion.  I cooked it over the campfire in my cast iron skillet.  We also had Dinty Moore Beef Stew that I also cooked over the campfire.  It wasn't a whole lot of food, but it was still good.  I'm planning on taking this skillet with me on all my campouts from now on.  It is the perfect size.

Tyler went to bed early that night.  I know he was tired.

This is me on Sunday morning.  I was comfortable, but still a little cold.  Really the only reason I got up early is because I really wanted some coffee.  We filled all the water bottles before bed with filtered water.  For that reason, we didn't to collect water in the morning before we started making breakfast.  That is always a good idea to do before bed on a campout.

About midnight that night, a boat with a few people pulled into our bay, and turned their music up very loud.  It was very irritating.  They didn't stay long, but I started to worry about my safety after they left.  I had two dreams that night about people coming into our campsite.  Both of the dreams were about homeless men coming to disrupt the peace.  The reason I had these dreams is because a few weekends before this campout, I received a letter in my mailbox at work from a man who stayed in my homeless shelter for only a few days in March 2015.  He wrote the letter from a county jail that is in the county over from the shelter where I am the director.  He told me in the letter that he was going to come to the Shelter at night and kill 10 people.  He listed them all.  I was not on that list, but still I think about it quite often.  That was not the first death threat I've received.

I go camping because I need it!  My job is stressful, and camping helps me relieve that stress.  Without camping, I would be a mess!

Sunday morning we had oatmeal and we put trail mix in it.  We boiled the water in our cups with an MSR Pocket Rocket Stove.  We poured the oatmeal in, and then the trailmix.  It was a good breakfast.  We also had coffee.

By 10 AM, we had all our gear loaded up, and we left the island.  We canoed back to the truck, loaded up, and drove back home.  I think I was home by 2 PM.  It was a very good weekend!  Dustin and I are planning on camping the last weekend of the summer with our boys every year.

Something I've been thinking about for a while is starting a camping group for former Scoutmasters (and assistants) who are no longer involved in Scouting.  To be part of this group, you must have been involved in Scouting.  It wont always be "man camping", but it will require that you know what you're doing in the wilderness.  I'm not sure if I will get out of Scouting once my boys age out, but if I do, I only have 5 more years as a Scout leader.  That will give me 10 years of Scout leadership.  I think if I follow the pattern that I've had in the past 2 years, by the end of my time in Scouting, I will be able to say that I've camped about 200 nights as a Scout leader.  As much time as I've camped in the past 35 years (since I was about 8), I feel safe to say I've camped probably 100 to 150 nights up to now.  I belong in the woods!