Still Waters

 Last weekend we finally had the opportunity to take our kayaks out on Mountain Island Lake. It's been quite a while since we've been able to do that. But the lake was calm, the heat wasn't too oppressive, and we didn't have anything else scheduled for the morning.

There were so many birds out! We put on our Merlin app, and it quickly picked up the sound of over a dozen different birds (including a wild turkey!) We saw a flock of geese, several herons, osprey and egrets. The water is a little high right now, so we were able to get back into some coves that are sometimes too shallow even for a kayak. It was a beautiful and restful adventure.

Mountain Island Lake

Escape to the Beech

Our friends purchased a condo in Beech Mountain, North Carolina recently. They invited us up for a visit last weekend. We have stayed in the complex where their unit is located in the past. It has nice views of the mountains and ski lift, and has an indoor pool and tennis/pickleball courts. It is walking distance to a playground, dog park, small grocery store and several restaurants.

We watched as our friend played pickleball in a tournament on Friday at the Beech Mountain Club, which is a really great facility. We have played there before with some other friends who have a membership. The rest of the weekend we hiked, played Mexican Train and just enjoyed the company of a really fun couple. While it did rain a bit, the temperature was nearly 15 degrees cooler than what we left behind, so that was a welcome relief in August for sure. What a great natural area less than 3 hours away from us!

Beech Mountain, NC

The weather has broken a little bit here. Today the high only hit 82 degrees, but what I love most is the fact that it gets into the 60s at night. It's wonderful to sit in the screened porch in the morning and drink my hot tea while catching up on the news. 

Last night was a Super Blue Moon. The moon is called "super" when it is closest to the earth and thus appears larger. Typically a season only has three full moons, but summer 2024 has four of them - thus the "blue moon". Our cloud cover parted in time for me to snap a picture of it. Gorgeous!

Super Blue Moon

Debby Downer

When we looked at retirement locations, we both agreed that we did not want to live near the coasts. We didn't want to have to worry about hurricanes and all that comes with those. We were also happy to leave the tornadoes of the Midwest behind. So we settled in an area just northwest of Charlotte.

Well, the joke was on us! Our first fall here there was a tornado warning. As our house is built on a slab, there is no basement. We hadn't considered tornadoes here, so we searched for the safest spot in the house to hunker down during the storm. That ended up being our laundry room. Fortunately no tornadoes have touched down anywhere near us, but it is still scary when the warning comes.

We also did not expect to get the backlash from hurricanes here. I'm not sure if being by the lake exacerbates weather conditions or not, but Tropical Storm Debby brought us crazy winds and rain. We watched as the trees out back bowed to the wind (though none fell down), and the rain pelted our plants and house. We received 7 inches of rain in a 24 hour period on Thursday. It was crazy.

We only lost power for about 45 minutes, but many people were without for hours. Roads were flooded, trees came down and the area was just a general mess Thursday into Friday. 

I guess there is truly no where you can live that is without perils of some type. It has just been surprising to see the weird weather here. But the view makes a lot of the other things seem forgivable.

calm after the storm