Ivan C. Potter, Publisher West Kentucky Journal
Sunday, September 21, 2014 5:35 pm

Now, each morning is encased with a slight chilled wind.

The long summer days are retreating from the quick pace of fall weather and events.

With a fresh cup of coffee, I watch the morning take shape on Jefferson Street here in the small community of Clinton, Kentucky. School buses, joggers, early workers off to jobs in other towns, senior citizens checking their mail boxes, sun light reaches less into my front porch domain.

This realm of peace and quiet is accented with the roar of farm trucks and tractors as grains are brought to market. Life's tempo has shot up several levels with the promises of a very busy fall before the harsh storms of winter set in.

Yet, there is time for me to savor one last remembrance of a few days and nights just spent in a Kentucky tourist paradise.

South Carolina has its Charleston and the Isle of Palms. Kentucky has its Kentucky and Barkley Lakes. Where the two Lakes come together there is Grand Rivers, Kentucky.

For many of the time stressed who want to get away from the horrific demands of day to day life, there is Green Turtle Bay Resort, located at Grand Rivers, Ky.

Most mornings during the season from March through mid September, each day at Green River Bay is framed in the music of roaring boat engines straining to wake up and start the day's routine of moving from bay docking out to the water of the Tennessee River or the Cumberland River.

For those who don't boat early in the day, there are the sounds of having coffee out on the wooden decks of the 80 condos 150 feet from the waters edge of the bay. This is the time of percolating coffee with the fresh smell of a liquid that can be savored on a private condo deck with the yummy feeling of having to share it ...wait for it... nothing of real time demands.

Time and life pressures melt into a new physical fabric of beautiful landscapes of crepe myrtles and other exotic plantings. Smaller engines come to life as year round staff and others move across the resort grounds by golf carts.

Green Turtle Bay is a place where normal time morphs into a stillness of anticipation of sun sets and moon risings as the essences of outdoor beauty is caress by gentle winds coming off the lake waters. It is a rare slice of physical and emotional paradise for West Kentuckians who want to get away from it all for a long weekend.

Some 650 pleasure boats, house boats, and yachts make this resort their home during the year. Life is built around the simple pleasure of slowing down one's pace. Peace of mind is a goal pursued each day. Walks in woods, sitting on small beaches, boating along the lake shores, or just chilling on the deck of the luxury condos at Green Turtle Bay, living becomes a very personal attainment of solitude.

Life is a series of cycles, forged with choices to be made at each crossroads. Setting upon my porch, the sunlight is warm not hot. Fall will happen in a few days, followed by the darkness and chills of winter in Western Kentucky. We can only hope for mild winters, not the massive snow and ice storms of the past few years.

I smile to myself, thinking no matter how brutal winter may become, like a long lost passion for beauty, I will always have those few days and nights in paradise, West Kentucky style, at Grand Rivers.