The Ol’ Swimming Hole

I am sorry we haven’t posted more often. There has been no summer trip for us this year. We have stayed at home so we can deal with any retirement paperwork as needed rather than have it sit around the post office for thirty days.

Since we are not on the road, Don is teaching some competition math workshops at a local summer academy. But this leaves the weekends for us to enjoy time on Lake Conroe. And that is a good thing as our daytime temperatures are finding the mid- to upper-nineties which are typical for Houston in July. In fact, we even reached 108 degrees one Saturday – not a record but darn close.

Our Swimming Hole

Nothing helps beat this heat more than being on the lake, unless it is being in the lake. There is no way any swimming pool can feel as relaxing and soothing as a lake. I won’t try to explain it – I can’t – but that is the way it is.

Lots of people have lots of favorite places to do their bathing. Some like a strip of sand where they can beach their boat, while others just drop anchor somewhere off shore. Our swimming hole is a little cove where we are generally by ourselves with the exception of a great egret and a great blue heron. The heron is actually a bit away from us sitting on a piling or the very corner of a dock. This seems to be a favorite place of his. The egret is much closer – just yards away.

The Nearby Great Blue Heron

We enjoy a cruise for an hour or two and then head to “our place,” drop anchor, and have some lunch. Then, against all the dire warnings of my mother, we head into the water without waiting the requisite one hour. We do nothing but bob about for an hour or so. And life is good, very good.

Our Great Egret

Often we have a visitor as the great egret will be there doing some sport fishing along the water’s edge. He is usually there when we arrive and still there when we leave. He is not bothered by us in the least.

One thing you can learn from watching egrets and herons is patience. They are incredibly patient birds, waiting and watching. They are never in a hurry, and they seem to know that they will always be fed if they just wait.

This past Saturday we had a new experience. We had an opportunity to try out our TowBoat USA insurance – Triple A for boats, Linda calls it. A small electrical problem cropped up just as we were heading back home, and we were dead in the water. We called TowBoat and they were at our side within 25 minutes. By then I had figured out the problem, but we had them tow us home anyway just for the experience. I am pleased to say the system worked. You pay for these things and hope you never have to use them. But it is comforting to know that when they are needed, they are there.

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