A view from the lake

The heat wave broke yesterday! Woohoo. The house has cooled down. Bob said the heat index in Italy was 105°F (40°+C). He was definitely looking forward to getting home last night. We got in the door just as the rain started falling. Today it is a spectacular day with the temperature in the mid 70°s F (23°C). Gorgeous blue skies and a lovely breeze. Due back in the low 80s next week which is perfect for heading back to the beach.

I’ve been home for a week from my trip to the U.S. to help my cousin and her husband move from Connecticut to their beautiful home on Lake Norman in North Carolina. On my last day there Donna and Carl’s friends, Forrest and Pat, rented a pontoon boat for the day and arrived back at the dock about 10:30am to pick me up. I had a strong request (read: strict instructions) from Donna to take photos of their house from the lake. Unfortunately, she had to work so she couldn’t join us.

Lake Norman is the largest man-made body of fresh water in North Carolina. According to Wikipedia, “Lake Norman is sometimes referred to as the “inland sea” of North Carolina; it offers 520 miles (840 km) of shoreline and a surface area of more than 50 square miles (130 km²).” So, yes, it is pretty big. Here is an aerial view from Google Earth. There are so many different coves and inlets. It is hard to get a feel for how large it is when you are sitting on a dock looking at one small piece of it.

Lake Norman is also home to many NASCAR race drivers. Definitely one of the many reasons that Donna fell in love with it! This area of North Carolina is NASCAR country. Bob built a kart track in nearby Mooresville called GoPro Motorplex. Many of the race drivers rent garages and enjoy racing karts there.

We cruised up and down the lake and ventured into several coves. It was great to see it all from a different perspective. Looking at some of the houses made you wonder what the people were thinking when they designed/built them.

In fact this one is being built across from Donna and Carl’s and I just don’t understand the small windows. You are on a gorgeous lake why wouldn’t you want to have huge windows to look out of?

There are some that you can tell people live in them and love them. They are home. But others are just a status symbol. Huge houses with no feeling of home to them.

It reminded me of the homes above our favorite beach, Ribera Beach, in Carmel, California. There are old homes there that have character and families have enjoyed and others that you wonder how anyone could design something so ugly in one of the most beautiful places. Having money doesn’t mean you have taste.

Since it was a weekday there weren’t many other boats out there.

There was one cove where we saw a fawn on a small sandy beach with a family of ducks just on the water’s edge. Sorry no pictures of that…I was too in awe of what I was watching. Further into the cove there was a old tree in the water which was a fishing haven for the Great Blue Herons. One in the tree and there were two on the old tree itself. Not a bad place to live and fish.

As we cruised back to Donna and Carl’s dock, I was reminiscing about being on our houseboat on the Mississippi River as a child. So many fond family memories of that time.

I made sure that I took photos of their home from the lake.

Home. There is nothing like it.