Time on our hands.

With our departure on hold until after Cyndee recuperates from surgery (which is now scheduled in three days), we are finding we have time to indulge ourselves with a little entertainment.  This Memorial Day weekend we got in a movie (the new Star Trek, we both loved it), a drive to the lake (at it's highest level in the 23 years we have been here), some shopping at the Outlet Mall, and a bar-b-que at our daughter and son-in-law's.  And the holiday weekend still has one day left in it.

Got the missing mudflap on Big Gulp replaced too.  Not entertaining to me but maybe the neighbors got a giggle out of Cyndee and I crawling under and into the wheel well while trying to get that rascal lined up, drilled and bolted in.

The bracket along the top was a sheet metal support.  In a past life I worked sheet metal and knew to wear hand protection but I figured I would be okay for this little job. I figured wrong.  In just one move I lost hide on four fingers.  I found that pair of leather gloves and started over.  But we are legal now, bring on the Texas State Inspection.

The trip to Lake Lanier was eye opening.  There has been so much drought in North Georgia for the past ten years that most of the boat ramps have been closed because the water level was so low.  Suction pipes that were the source point for drinking water for the Atlanta metro area became exposed and had to be extended hundreds of feet to get submerged enough to do their thing.  In 2007/2008 the water level got so low that the Army Corp of Engineers (COE) estimated that it may take 20 years to bring the lake back to normal levels.  But, in September of 2009 there was such a string of rain storms that Lake Lanier returned to full pool in just that month!  However, we returned to drought conditions and levels soon dropped to dangerously low levels again.  Enter the spring of 2013.  It has been a very wet spring.  Not the torrential downpours of September of '09, but frequent and long soaking rains for weeks, with one big one - 6" of rain in 7 hours.  This big one came after the ground was thoroughly saturated and it was localized directly over the watershed basin for Lake Lanier.  Every drop of the rain made its way into the lake.  The lake is at near record levels, above it's summer full pool level.  I don't ever recall that happening in the 23 years we have been here.

These two pictures are of the same swimming beach in the Bald Ridge Creek Campground.  In the top picture you can see (click the picture to enlarge) the red swim buoys laying on dry sand, the depth gauge (tall stick with white markers on the right) does not have water within ten feet of it.  The bottom picture shows a much smaller beach, swim buoys well out in the water and a depth gauge that is barely visible and water up to the bottom branches of the trees on the island opposite the swim beach.  Considering how large this lake is, this change in elevation represents massive amounts water.  I sure hope drought does not return.

T -4 days until departing Georgia (clock stopped and holding)