Do They Have a Starbucks Down There?

I'm happy to report that I didn't fall into the lake. I did, however, get soaked!

Smith Mountain Lake is huge - over 500 miles of shoreline - and the amazing thing is that it's man-made. In places, it's over 250 feet deep, and way down in those depths there are full-sized, upright trees, and buildings still intact. Creepy!

We expected to take a boat tour in a large boat that would accommodate most of us, but due to an error, it wasn't available. As we waited by the docks, I looked out and saw a whole fleet of small boats sweeping toward us.

Several of us hopped into a pontoon boat and we were treated to a two-hour ride over this beautiful lake.

These folks were nice - no worries after all about unfriendliness! There's our hotel in the distance.

These look like the bottoms of mountains, but they're really the middles.

Creepy dam (when I expressed that I wasn't sure why I found it creepy, the girl across from me said, "It's because it may pull you into its vortex and you'd be sucked into oblivion." Yup, that's it.).

Pretty lighthouse (not real).

Pretty sailboats on the lake (real).

The "Black & Decker" home (real ritzy).

The entire time we were on the lake, the side of my skirt was being sprayed with water - after about an hour I began to feel extremely chilled and by the time the sun set and we finally docked, it was all I could do to keep from kissing the ground.

The weekend was beautiful and refreshing. When I got up this morning, an intense fog was just lifting.

See the tiny spots in the bottom left corner? I zoomed in:

It's so good to be home. Flutterbug did just fine driving around, and we enjoyed our time of retreat, but I'm so glad to be in my chair, with Mike and Flutterbug in theirs, Buddy lolling at my feet, and Kiki perched nearby. God is so good.