AH CHAUTAUQUA!

Enjoying New Year's Day at the Kinneys

Barb Fox, Joe Bergen and Evie

Bud and Debi Kinney

It's great to be back at the lake, in our house, sleep in our bed though we love visiting our children and grand kids.  Nonetheless, there's nothing like home, the comfort, routine, view, the pictures, just being surrounded by a life of accumulation(mostly from our travels).  For my fans, I was up by 7:15, with Evie, who quickly took a picture of our snowy front yard.  It's 25 out at the moment, a low of 12 later this evening.  And, I cannot believe my eyes but there seems to be a  couple of boats off of Long Point fishing, hardy locals no doubt.  Give me a June morning, not January though we are both tempted to kayak later today if the wind stays quiet. As I look closer at the fishermen, with my binoculars, I see that they are actually hunters, wading in the water, setting up their decoys, not fishermen. Hard core.  By the way, we got almost four inches last night so its white outside in our yard, a gray lake, a gray and white shoreline over towards Bemus, with up to 10-12 more possibly tonight.

7:18

We had an easy ride from Darien yesterday, clear and sunny for the first five hours, then gray and wet from Corning, NY, to home.  We stopped at Wegman's to stock up because the weather forecast suggested we might get lots of snow.  No snow when we arrived, just rain, a wet lawn, a gray, choppy lake.  We unpacked quickly, Evie worked at setting up her new phone (thanks Tommy), and then relaxed.

Happily, our neighbor Bud Kinney walked by, invited us to his house with some of the other neighbors for some appetizers and cheer (it turned into dinner as well). Bud and Debi had driven up that day, staying till Monday afternoon, the Foxes have been up since Thursday, the Bergen's since Friday.  We sat around drinking beer, munching on appetizers, catching up on our New Year's Eves, what's been happening since we last had seen each other this past fall.  It was fun and a great way to return to the lake and see our friends after a couple of months.  All three couples, like us, love it up here at the lake and come up, even in the winter, as often as they can.  Both the Foxes and Kinney's have been coming up since the 1960's, the Bergen's the last five years, so we enjoyed lots of stories about the early days here at the lake.  By the way, Betsy, Joe's wife, was under the weather, so she's missing from the pictures.

8:03

Today, we will get further organized, decide on a dinner and go for a walk, either around the woods nearby or campground, possibly go to the CI depending on our mood.  At the moment, it's snowing so hard I can no longer see the other side, as all is gray, little definition between the lake and sky.  Snow on!