The Lake House
This is the back yard of my "retreat center" when I'm at Ft. Bragg. It's about 20 minutes outside post - just enough to get away but not be too far to have to drive.
Lyle preparing his gear for work the next day. The lake is about three times the size of what you can see in this picture and a navigable canal to the right leads to another (deeper) lake about 1/3 the size of ours. The feel is like living in a park. Note too the perfectly-placed hammock right by the water. I've taken a few naps there, of course, and have occasionally spent the night in it.
Dave found this place and we moved in Winter of '05. It's our intent to keep it even when we are back at our home (National Guard) units so we always have a place at Bragg to come home to on the many occasions that we will have to go back there over the rest of our careers. To make the whole thing possible, a steady stream of new potential renters from The Community is always arriving to attend "The Course" every month. Thus far - all have been, or have become, some of my best friends. We also like to make it available for Guard guys who are visiting Bragg for a few days.
We have a lot of get-togethers at the house (note the BBQ grill on the dock), and two local triathlon clubs I'm a member of come here to train on the lake. It's spring-fed and only electric motors are allowed so the water's pristine. It's also filled to the brim with Bass, Croppie, Blue Gill, and some Catfish. Many's the night we've caught dinner in the canoe that we keep out back by the dock.
As a bonus, there's a nice grass strip fly-in community about a mile down the road so I have a good place to fly small planes. I've done circles over the house before - that's always fun. The roads all around the house are farm roads that go on forever. Nice for road biking, motorcycling, Motor Home surfing (not that that's ever happened :-); scenery, and good neighbors. Makes you almost forget that dismal "Fayette-Nam" is just a few miles away.
We have wireless satellite internet now and can take the laptop down to the dock. It's fun to be working on line and have a neighbor drift by in their John boat and talk to them about the fishing.
Shown above is my morning ritual.
I also love to take our canoe out at night and paddle out into the "dark part" of the lake and just sit there listening to the night sounds.