So Amanda’s old boss has a lake house about an hour north of us at Lake Gaston near the North Carolina / Virginia border, which he graciously allowed us to utilize this past weekend. After work Friday night, we took Bongo, our friend Bret and his two dogs (Peanut and Shelby) North to the Virginia border. We arrived after night had fallen and the house is a bit off the road, though still within a few miles of an I-85 exit. The two-story house sits on a corner of a near 90-degree turn on a mostly gravel laden road.
We rolled on up and unpacked the 4Runner, which was packed with enough crap for a week’s stay there – food and drink galore! We checked out the place, and settled in with the dogs, basically unpacking and soon after Amanda retired to bed. Bret and I hung out for awhile playing cards, mainly War, which I had never played. I know. I had a sheltered childhood… not a lot of cards. Mainly I played Skip-Bo and Uno growing up.
Anyway, we retired fairly early and started out the next morning first thing. We walked the dogs further down the rolling gravel road in search of the public dock area where we could launch the two kayaks into the lake, but we ended up turning around as it wasn’t within easy walking distance, especially with two full-sized single person kayaks and its related gear in tow to and from the dock.
We put Bret’s dogs away and then piled into the 4Runner with the two kayaks sticking out the back of the SUV. We headed down about half a mile to the public dock and Bret and I set out onto the lake, with Amanda and Bongo chilling at the end of the dock.
Immediately to the left of the launch area was a set of buildings with 3-4 boats docked. Further on beyond that was I-85 in the distance. The other direction on the lake, you could see a big train bridge in the distance. Two small structures also sat toward the middle of the lake. Bret and I paddled to the first of the two of those and they turned out to be some sort of fishing building – pretty cool setup. The first structure had a boat garage of sorts, which I paddled through, though unfortunately no pictures of.
We then checked out the other fishing structure which was probably about a quarter of the way to halfway towards the train bridge. This structure was a little smaller, no “dock” for the boat, but had a big bird’s nest on the roof, and was more overgrown with brown and gray branches and plant growth.
We then paddled to shore and one of us got out for Amanda to get a shot at kayaking on Lake Gaston, and again went to the structures. Amanda hadn’t realized they were man-made buildings. She thought they were just some sort of plant growth or little islands in the middle of the lake.
It was my first experience kayaking and I really enjoyed it. It was a lot easier and not as taxing as I’d expect. Granted, we were on a fairly calm lake rather than on a raging river or slapping ocean waves, but it was thoroughly enjoying, relaxing and really cool to be skimming across the lake under your own power.
Amanda and I wanted to look into getting our own kayaks and I later researched them only to find they’re pretty pricey for a quality set.
After a couple more round trips and swapping of boats, etc., we headed back the house for a lunch of cold cuts and chips and chilling on the screened-in porch. Their screened-in porch was great. We spent a lot of time there, as we were able to enjoy the outdoors and the scenery, but keep the bugs at bay, and kept the three dogs in check. We had our little Bose SoundDock with my iPhone in it (and later Bret’s iPod) playing music most of the time on the porch and it was just nice and relaxing.
Tina, who had to work till 1ish, joined us, and we again went down to the lake for another round of kayaking, though now mid-afternoon – it had warmed up a bit and we all got bit of sun and sweat on our brows.
Upon our return to the house, I realized the passenger rear tire was flat. I’d never had to change a tire on the 4Runner before, but Bret and I made pretty easy work out of it. Luckily, the 4Runner has a full-sized spare sitting behind the back axle. With a little bit of work, we got that on. I’m glad that it happened sitting in the driveway and not on the side of I-85 and also that Bret and I were able to knock that out together. It made things go a lot faster.
We then all showered and cleaned up and Amanda made some great pepperoni and cheese Stromboli. There’s never any leftovers with that.
We then all chilled out on the screened-in porch for awhile, playing some cards – like Egyptian Ratscrew, which the girls didn’t like the slapping in part. They soon grew tired of it and wanted us to setup the fire pit for some s’mores and hanging out in the front yard. Bret and I would have preferred that we waited till sunset to do the whole fire thing, but we set it up and by the time we were roasting marshmallows and the like, the sun had set and the s’mores were a great dessert!
Following that, for the rest of the evening, we Bret and I sat around playing cards, taking shots of SoCo and lime and bitching about work. By this point in the evening, Amanda and Tina were inside, talking and doing whatever it is women do when they get together.
Bret and I were eventually feeling the shots, words were slurring and the card game broke down. I eventually stumbled out off the front porch and got a little sick. We both called it a night and I took a couple more trips to the bathroom. I tried to go to sleep multiple times, but the room was spinning way too much. Eventually I crashed, with a raw as hell throat and a gurgling stomach.
Sunday morning I was hurting a bit, got up for awhile and then went back and laid down some more. That morning nap really helped me. Everyone was pretty much ready to head back South and so we loaded up the cars, cleaned up a bit and got on the road. Bret and Tina were nice enough to buy us lunch at the local Cook Out near our house and then they headed back home. Amanda and I were pretty worthless the rest of the day – napping on the couch and watching TV for the majority of the rest of the day.
Today, I’m still not feeling 100%, but not too bad as I still did my hybrid bike commute to work and will be doing that at the end of the work day. All in all, we had a blast hanging out up at the lake and hanging out with Bret, Tina and each other. Hopefully, we’ll get to do some more trips like that at some point.
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