Barren River Lake is really nice. They have a resort but it's relatively uncommercialized. It's a rather large lake and just north of the TN border. It's also located 30-45 minutes from the Mammoth Cave area. The swimming beach is nice and pretty well maintained. The sand is nice there but the day and night before our last day visiting the beach area it rained a lot and flooded in the area, so the nice beach sand had run off into the lake, which created a nice sand shelf a few yards into the lake. Even so, the kids were determined to bury each other in the base, compacted sand/dirt. We made it work. The beach crew was back in the day we left to resand and clean up.
The shoreline behind our cabin was rocky but still a nice place to visit. There are a lot of fossils. The lake was created in the 1960s after the dam was put in. There was a high concentration of Native Americans in earlier years. They were known for burning the forests to stampede and kill big game.
The kids would swim hours and hours, even without floaties and tubes. There was a lot of boating activity and nice fishing, although we didn't catch any from the spots we attempted in just a very short time. I was nipped on the leg on the last day, while sitting a couple of yards into the lake. I jumped a few feet into the air.
The kids would take turns walking with one of us down to the shoreline from our cabin, to just talk and catch up. Vanessa said KY is her new favorite place. Zane wanted to clean up the shoreline and found a pool noodle fashioned for fishing. It floated to the shoreline after the heavy rains. Zane and Vanessa enjoyed a couple of trips to the shoreline on their own too, and started playing in the woods where they built things with yard and wood.
Along the shoreline was a Button Bush, where we would see several beautiful butterflies just hanging around. It was peaceful spot.
