I decide to play a bit

One of the problems that self-employed people have to wrestle with is that if we don't work, we don't earn any money. There is no such thing as a paid holiday. So one has to choose.

I chose to play....


Just a bit....


On Labor Day I took a few hours off from my labors to get away from the computer.

Off to Noblett Lake, a small lake that formed behind the dam built on Noblett Creek between 1938 and 1940 by young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).



Noblett Creek is a small river that meanders through Howell and Douglas Counties, and the lake is about 12 miles from our house.

They made a trail along the shoreline from the dam leading to a nice picnic area with tables under the trees


and two pavilions for people to gather under cover if they wish.


There is also a trail that runs the ridge around the lake, which I hiked once many years ago when our boy was young.

I invited Richard to come, but he said it would be too crowded. It wasn't, of course. It was deserted.


See how crowded the parking lot is?

I invited our son to come, and he said yes. He had the day off, but in a very great irony, the company he works for doesn't recognize Labor Day as a paid holiday, so they honor their workers on Labor Day by shutting down and then not paying them for the day off.

Noblett Lake is in the Mark Twain National Forest and so it is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, and they made a major mistake....


A very big mistake...

They planted kudzu along the road leading to the lake.