Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Down Memory Lane

Before we start today’s trip down memory lane …

• Monday’s indoor waterfall confirmed my gut instinct. The shower pan has failed. This means it costs enough to fix that we want to go ahead with the full renovation we had already been thinking about.

• Our plumber (who was awesome, came in on Tuesday, did the test he needed to do and said "yep. it's the shower pan" However, in order to do that test ...

• We have a foot-square hole in the living room ceiling. I forgot to get a picture during what passed for daylight today and if I tried now it would be all flashy and crappy. You’ll have to take my word for it until at least tomorrow.

• I’m finally to the armpit decreases on the Yin-Yang bolero. Since it has been my “debate knitting” for all three debates, I’m considering calling it the Obama/McCain bolero. I just hope it starts going faster. Soon.

• I think I can now go band-aid free on my sliced thumb, which should increase knitting opportunity. I hope.

OK, so now we’ll get to the actual blog post.

Two weeks ago Thursday (Sept. 25) was the last day I spent at Van Buren Point for the 2008 summer. I feel like I totally missed this summer, which made the few perfect fall days I was up there really incredible.

It was in the low 70s with a slight breeze. The water temperature was perfect and the Lake was almost dead calm and had settled enough that it was just about to my favorite pool-like quality.

So I took the kayak out for that day’s exercise.

I paddled down to Pulpit Rock, which is essentially the “turn” of the coastline that divides the Point from the Bay. You can’t walk around the coves to get to Pulpit Rock. You have to swim around the last cove. It’s the only part of “my” beach where the lake drops off quickly and becomes deep water almost immediately.

It’s Pulpit Rock because before erosion did its thing, it really looked like a pulpit.

Yes, I took my camera out in the kayak. It was in a zippy bag and in an enclosed water-tight area of the boat when it wasn’t in use.

I had been on a serious glass-gathering mission during that last week at the Lake. To the point where I decided that part of the reason for paddling in to Pulpit Rock was to gather glass. Success!

There's rumor that Mark Twain says he found gold on this beach!

This was me standing right where I beached my boat, on the “right” side of the cove

It was a lot of fun to beachcomb a section of beach that isn’t walked daily.

Then I hopped back into my boat and paddled back down the lake, towards “home”

I was about this far out into the water

I’d say about a football field from shore

And the lake was this shallow and clear


Yes, It was that shallow and clear. Probably about 6’ of water 100+ yards from shore

You can even see my shadow on the floor of the Lake!

I paddled back in, read my book on the beach for a while, then went to visit my two of my favorite Humans who left for Florida the following morning. Then I packed my car and went down to the beach to watch my last sunset of the year




It was awesome. The perfect end to the perfect day to end a too-short summer. I’m totally taking vacation during September next year.

6 comments:

Jenn said...

Pretty beach pictures! At least with the blackberry you could still go up, even if you had to work.

Daniele said...

What gorgeous pictures. I could almost feel the water on my hands and the sun on my face. Thanks for the mini-vacation during my long day! :)

Jess said...

Wow! I seriously gasped out lout when I saw that cove!
I want to see what you found on the beach. You better post about that!
The whole day sounded dreamy. I am so glad you shared.

Yvonne said...

It is not often that Lake Erie settles down enough for those type of pics, yet you've managed to capture it twice this year. I think I need to pay you to collect sea glass for me. :)

Jen said...

Oh my gosh - what a beautiful and serene looking beach. :)

turtlegirl76 said...

Absolutely gorgeous pics. Your last weekend certainly did look fabulous.