Cabin on Yellow Creek. Yes, we will take it, party line and all!

My mom and dad had been looking for land on Lake Tuscaloosa and Yellow Creek. They purchased a pontoon boat about three years ago and since then we have been spending more and more time on the water.  Mom and dad wanted to have a place we could all enjoy, a weekend getaway on the water.  They finally found some land (there was no for sale sign, but mom and dad contacted the owner and asked if they would agree to sale) and a cabin they really liked loved and last Thursday they closed the deal!  Mucho thanks to our "family attorney", Mr. Stuart Albea, for helping them with the contract and the closing!  After the closing, Mom and dad came by the house acting like two kids on Christmas morning.  They stayed long enough to give me color samples (for the cabin roof) and then they were out the door headed to Yellow Creek!

So two days later we met them at the cabin to start cleaning.  Let me say this place hasn't been kept up over the years so the cabin needs a lot of work!  Plus the cabin is very old and will need some repairs.  Everything in the cabin, but a few furniture pieces was included in the sale, and the cabin was FULL of furniture!  There was at least 5-6 couches, 4-5 mattresses, 6-7 beds, 3 dining tables with chairs, tons of linens, fully stocked kitchen, a telescope, antique pool table, 2 dryers, a washing machine, one working dishwasher, one nonworking dishwasher, 2 recliners, 2-3 chest of drawers, a huge trunk, 3 televisions, a stereo, etc.  You name it!  It was in there!  The grass was all grown up around the cabin and you could barely walk the steps to the pier because of the overgrowth of weeds.  Needless to say we had our work cut out for us!

Mom and dad got there early.  Dad cut the grass and mom started a burn pile.  Our, ok, Brady's clean up efforts started on the road to the cabin.  Limbs and weeds were trying to take over the road and needed a trim so Brady cut the limbs as me and the kids followed in the van.

Brady found a turtle on the side of the road, scooped it up, and gave it to the kids.  They LOVE turtles so you can imagine their squeal!  It turns out we had the perfect place to keep it until we got down to the cabin!  :)

How do you like your turtles? Natural cut with maybe some sea salt??!! ;)

I was sure to take some before pictures as soon as I got there.  I'm not posting those until we are finished with the renovations.  It's a huge project, but so far we are having a good time getting it cleaned up and envisioning the finished product!

We decided the best thing to do with most of the furniture was to burn it, so we burned most of the day. Brady did a lot of weed eating and removing the big furniture pieces.  Dad cleared a lot of the brush from the cabin down to the water.  He also changed the door locks.  Mom and I cleaned out the living room, bathrooms, kitchen, and bedrooms, and also helped with the furniture removal.  Brady and I could only help on Friday, but mom and dad worked on it Saturday and Sunday, too.  Mom and dad worked until they couldn't work anymore!  Working at least 10 hours a day for 3 days out in this heat is a huge accomplishment!

The kids helped out some, but mostly they wanted to swim.  They enjoyed jumping from the pier and swimming together.  The pier has a nice shade over it so we all enjoyed that, even if it was only for a 10-15 minute break!

There is no cell service when you are at Yellow Creek, no 3G, nor is there internet.  It was actually kind of nice to be so unconnected for the day!  There is a land line, but it's a party line!!  How funny is that?!?!  Mom took a telephone to the cabin on Sunday and called me on the party line!!  She informed me that our ring was 2 long rings and the ring for the other person on the party line is 2 short rings.  Or was it the other way around??  Oh well!  As long as I can reach 911 if needed, I will be just fine!

I think I'm going to like this place.  A lot!