Alabama Lake House: Day One

Well, we drove around 870 miles yesterday, from 9 AM EST until 10:30 PM central time, and we made it here just fine. My uncle J.R. and aunt Christine met us at the local Stop n' Shop about 15 minutes from the family lake house, and we got the grand tour at about 11. By 12, we were more or less settled in and watching our St. Patrick's Day movie -- Boondock Saints. Lewis Smith Lake is about 20 miles north west of Birmingham, and it's got about 500 miles of shoreline according to aunt Christine. It's in the middle of the Bankhead National Forest, and more or less speckled with lake houses like ours. The two in the picture are the two my family owns; we're staying in the "log house" on the right.


Lis and I stayed up late on Tuesday (into Wednesday, really) celebrating St. Paddy's, and we had a nice lie-in this morning. At noon, though, we were up and at 'em. We took uncle Don's canoe out for three and a half hours and toured the immediate area. The water level is pretty high, so all of the caves and crevices I remember from my last visit here are flooded or flooding, but we enjoyed the cliff sides all the same. I photographed a few of the more interesting ones, and we finally settled on a pale cliff with a shelf easily accessible from water level for a brief rest. After docking the canoe, Lis and I dangled our toes into the absolutely frigid water, decided not to swim, and she did a free climb up a crevice in the cliff face.

I'm not too terribly upset that Brice couldn't make it down with us, but I really think he would have enjoyed climbing and rappelling some of the rocks around here. I've included some of the pictures of the shore line here for you all to see:












Aunt Christine made us dinner, we played a bag-toss game after, and now everyone's just off doing their own thing and relaxing. Other than a smart sun burn and few more pages in The Crossing, I really don't have very much to show for myself today. I should work on my Sherman Alexie paper tomorrow. Really, I should.