Clouding Up, A Choppy Lake

6:34

Victoria/Woodlawn from Tom's Point

Kayaking Off Of Tom's Point

It's now now 7:30 and I have been up since 6:30.  A long, horizontal bank of clouds hid the sunrise, until it rose above, then disappeared again into the clouds.  It's supposed to be nice day, rain late afternoon or evening if at all.  Right now, however, it's overcast, lots of gray sky and lake, a single bass boat drifting off of Victoria.

Spring Time at Tom's Point

Yesterday was a sunny, crisp morning, the kind we love, so we decided to kayak around 9:30.  We paddled for about forty five minutes, to Tom's Point, where we beached our kayaks, and went for a short hike, out to the point, then along the Power Boat Club road and houses of Bootey Bay.  No evidence of any new dwellings being built, perhaps because the area, for the most part, is a trash heap, the lake front unkempt, over grown, not very desirable, making it hard to imagine building a half million dollar home. A few docks are out though most boats are still in storage.  As we walked, we remembered that we had wanted to hike Tom's Point, like many other areas, during the winter but never managed it because of the cold, the lack of heavy snows.  Surprisingly, this was not a winter of record snow falls despite the cold.  We paddled back to Woodlawn, sticking to the shoreline most of the way, rousting ducks and other shore birds as we paddled. We were gone just over two hours, so that by the time we walked into the house, it was time for lunch, a bagel with cream cheese and tomatoes, simple but tasty, my daughter Jill's favorite meal in college.

Bootey Bay Lake Front

Cottage at Bootey Bay

We went into Jamestown, to the doctor, for another test, and everything seems fine for Evie.  Sitting in a doctor's office is always depressing, more so in Jamestown because of the demographic, poor, aging, and unhealthy.  I especially had empathy for the many who came in wheel chairs, usually via CARTS, unable to have a family member bring them.  How sad.  We stopped at Wegman's on the way home, unable to resist the temptation of stopping in for something...anything.

We decided to go out for a beer, perhaps dinner at Hadley Bay, which opened again this past weekend. As we expected, it was practically empty on a Tuesday, with a shortened menu, so we sat at bar, had a draft and talked with the bartender, a woman who lives in Bemus, a Spanish teacher, who lost her job when Ripley consolidated with Chautauqua Lake.  A number of guys walked in, all seemingly back from Florida, and one of the group was Joe Johnson, a breakfast buddy who seems to know everyone in the area.  All the guys were high school friends, now in their 70's, and they usually meet on Tuesday nights for dinner.  How neat to still have high school friends and quite unusual for so many of them to have stayed in the same area.  We met all of them, a number who spent their teenage and college years along Woodlawn, either visiting, staying in cottages, or partying with the kids of families that lived there like the Maitlands, Landons, Schauers, and Bugbees.  I have hardly seen or talked with any high school friends since I left Ohio, with one or two exceptions, probably because we lived in Hawaii and Turkey before coming back to Ohio.  And we always made new friends wherever we relocated, not necessarily looking back until we retired, when I reconnected with college friends, mostly basketball players.

We ended up not eating at the restaurant but did order some hand cut fries, a skimpy basket though really good.  We went home, and had left over Chinese and a salad for dinner, and watched a couple more episodes of Friday Night Lights.  It's a little over the top with having to create a problem and solve it each week.  Still, it's very good, as good a series on regular TV (not cable) as I have seen.