Epic Thanksgiving Part 1

 We went up to visit my folks for Thanksgiving, and we all had a great time!

As you may know, my parents live on a lake.  What you may not know is that the lake is artificial: really, it's a stream that was dammed up sometime in the 50s or 60s.

Surprise!  They are doing major work on the dam and they drained the lake!

Now my parents live on the mud flats!

 

The dam now looks like this (looking down from the road that goes over the dam).  Why the sidewalk looking thing perpendicular to the dam?  I have no idea!

Incidentally, if you're worried about the fish, they scooped them out in buckets.  I wonder if they found the giant snapping turtle I was always afraid would bite my toes off.  We saw it once, it's ragged shell the diameter of a man hole cover.

 The heavy construction equipment was admired by all, as you can imagine.

Besides walking down to the dam, the kids clambered along the rocks on the shore line and returned with heaps of 6 and 7 inch clam shells, some still inhabited.

Giant freshwater clams in Clearview Lake?  Who knew!  And I was worried about the turtle!

At any rate, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to walk out in the middle of the lake and see the stream for myself.

I put on my Dad's rubber boots (3 sizes too large) and came up with a plan: there were large swathes of rocky terrain in the mud flats, and I thought they might be drier, or at least more manageable, than the flat muddy places.  The Emperor solemnly promised that if I fell down, he'd laugh really hard throw me a log, so off I went.

Believe it or not, the "rocky path" idea worked. I sank in to below my ankles, but that was manageable, even with the oversized boots.  I made it to the middle (actually 2/3rds across) and saw the stream.  It was about 3 feet deep and running fast.  I didn't get too close because I saw the tracks of a small duck imprinted about 3 inches into the mud there, and I figured a larger duck would sink more...

I picked up 2 flat rocks (one for my brother, one for my sister) of the kind we used to try to skip out there, and turned back.  A few yards from shore, I saw the big branch my Mom had wanted out of the lake, so I thought I'd take a detour... through the smooth mud...

One boot sank in to mid calf and stuck fast.  One foot stuck, when you're walking in deep mud actually turns out to mean BELLY FLOP!

Naturally, The Emperor on dry land became frantic with worry... about finding the camera.

While I was there, I did get the junk out of the muck, and eventually, me out of the muck, too.

If you're curious, the jacket and jeans survived, the white sweater did not.


After I got cleaned up, we picked up sticks and burned them for a marshmallow and hot dog roast.  Yum!  Yum!