Camerasutra

Studies say that it is therapeutic to look at cute puppies.  Well, here you go…

Today my Dad took Tyler and Kristen out to fish from the boat.  Kristen caught “another” fish!  Tyler struck out again.  Kristen made no attempt to hide her elation over another skunking with the fishin’ rod.  She is thinking about quitting her job and joining the boatmen from The Deadliest Catch.  Why not?  I say do it!

After the half successful fishing expedition, we all enjoyed a delicious meal of gluten-free spaghetti out on the deck.  If someone knows of  something better than gluten-free pasta at Lake Burton surrounded by family, please speak up.  Oh yeah….I hadn’t considered pizza, cupcakes and margaritas at Lake Burton surrounded by family….good call.

Final tally: Kristen – 1 trout, Tyler – 0 trout, Jess – 20 pages read, Adam – 40 photos taken.

Lake Burton, Georgia is about half a mile this side of heaven.  It was at one time an undiscovered jewel in the middle of the North Georgia mountains.  It is fair to say that people have now discovered the jewel and have built huge, expensive monstrosities around the jewel and dropped large expensive boats into the jewel.  Fortunately my grandparents were some of the earliest folks to discover the lake and purchased a lot about 45 years ago, camped for years on the property and eventually built a small cabin.  My brother, sister and I were all raised on the lake in the summers swimming and playing all day with small breaks for lunch and gin rummy with Grandma on the deck.

The house is now been passed onto my father and his brother.  They are gracious enough to share the usage of the place with us kids.  This year we’ve invited Jess’s brother Tyler and his wife Kristen out to enjoy the lake with us.  They are our designated fisherman and are also responsible for consuming Bud Light and relaxing.  For a second year running, they have take their responsibilities very seriously and have not let us down for even a second.

We were also blessed by the presence of Jess’s good friend Brittany, her boyfriend John and her cute 10 month old puppy, Lily.  After a long drive in the dark from Atlanta and several phone calls with reports of being lost again, they finally found the house a little after midnight.  Although they had to leave us at 2pm the next day, we all enjoyed the heck out of the morning.

We’re in Atlanta visiting with my family now.  My parents got a new puppy Yorkie.  His name is Toby.  He is very cute.  You just want to put him on a biscuit and eat him up.  According to Georgia law, you cannot do this.

I feel completely at home when I meet a family is as friendly, welcoming and fun-loving as my own. Fortunately, one such family is Jess’s. This entire trip has been one pleasant family experience after another. If each of these visits are considered visits to small family bases, Hart Ranch would be considered the Mother Ship. Jess affectionately refers to any of these trips as a visit to the Aunt Farm, since we are surrounded by Aunt Sandy, Aunt Donna, Aunt Elaine, Aunt Lori and several other relatives who carry that same Auntly spirit. The trips of past have consisted of hanging out in and outside of the trailer, drinking plenty of lite beer mixed with tomato juice, meals at the restaurant by the pool, a couple competitive games of ladder golf and the hope of hearing the most pleasant sound on Earth….Uncle Bert’s laughter. This year was no exception to any of those.

This year we did finally make it up Rocheford, South Dakota, which we have only talked about in year’s past. They have described to me a dead end town at the end of a long drive into the mountains with a single room bar that is still standing merely by the grace of God. After my visit to Rocheford, I’d have to agree that this is a pretty apt description of the place. There is a single intersection and at those crossroads is the Moonshine Gulch Saloon. On this 4th of July there was a larger crowd than usual, including a group of cowboy poets sitting around exchanging stories and songs. The most popular (and cheapest) beer on the list is Grain Belt, The Friendly Beer. I was literally tickled by another Grain Belt drinker while shooting video on my iPhone if that gives you any idea of its effect.

On the front door to the saloon was a small handwritten sign advertising rhubarb for $4.50 per large bag. Jess, who has been on a summer-long hunt for rhubarb jumped at this opportunity. She was unaware that this would send the older, female bartender on a hike back up the mountain to her home where she returned 20 minutes later with an entire paper grocery sack busting with Rhubarb. For her efforts, Jess threw in an additional $10 tip.

The remainder of the day was filled with tons of laughter, a herd of cows in the road, a delicious 4th of July BBQ dinner, quite a few beers, several losing games of ladder golf, a jar of pickled eggs, friendly conversation and then again more laughter. After another visit to Hart Ranch, it has etched out a place for itself in the warmest confines of my heart. I can’t wait to return.

The next leg of the trip put us in the middle of a long stretch of county road which I would aptly describe as the middle of nowhere.  Just east of the middle of nowhere is Aunt Sandy and Uncle Dick’s house.  This is Christmas headquarters for Jess’s family where we would have played plenty of Pinochle over Christmas had the blizzard of 2009 not pulled into town.  There is no doubt that we’ll try again in 2010.

Dick and Sandy had prepared a delicious feast of pot roast for us to enjoy while we watched rabbits and pheasants tease us from the back window.  I love South Dakota though because it is Aunt Sandy who enjoys the last laugh.  From the angle which the rabbits see us from, they can only see the tops of Sandy’s gorgeous crystal stemware.  They are not privy to the crystal bowls that sit just below eyesight and contain an entire box of .22 caliber  bullets.  Did I mention that I love South Dakota?  You get ‘em Aunt Sandy!

Melissa mentioned before we left that she had a surprise adventure for use that required pants, close-toes shoes and a hat.  Jess and I combined these cryptic clues along with Melissa’s known love of horses to assume that we’d be saddling up for some horseback riding this morning.  Survey says….horseback riding!  Circle gets a square…hot dog, we have a wiener!

Jess and I were both very excited about the experience.  Jess went to horse camp as a youngster and I did a lot of horseback riding at Camp Chatuga, but it had been years since either of us had been on a horse.

Somehow enough time had passed to allow me to forget how gentle these giant animals are. The owner of the horses, Jeff, does such an amazing job with these horses.  None of these horses would ever kick and if they had pockets that held money and you needed that money, these very nice horses would probably give you that money.  I had also never realized how incredibly soft their noses are.  We decided that Ruby is likely part horse as well since their noses are made of the exact same soft tissue.

Melissa is a great guide.  Her friends Jeff boards several horses that she is able to come ride whenever she pleases.  She taught us how to saddle up our horses, get onto the giant animals, and steer them.  She also warned me that I was likely to rip my thumb of my hand by the way I was holding the reigns.  If this had happened, you could say goodbye to spaces in my blog entries.  Thank Melissa for the continued use of the most helpful of all punctuations.  I will take this opportunity to thanks Melissa for an incredible morning on the horses.

After the amazing experience at the store, it was time to move on to the next stop on the trip.  We headed further North to visit Jess’s cousin Melissa in Chamberlain, South Dakota.  Once again, I was blown away by the beauty of South Dakota at this next stop.  Chamberlain is divided by a wide, gorgeous expanse of the Missouri River and connected by a classic, old bridge that is currently undergoing renovation.  The town’s culture seems to center around the river…primarily the Walleye fishing.  Everywhere that we went had pictures of people holding a stringer of Walleye.  The hills around Chamberlain are just as pleasing as anywhere else we’ve been, only these have a huge body of water in the foreground that adds another dimension of beauty.

Melissa took us to a local spot called Charley’s for dinner.  I think the heavy winds had kept most of the fisherman off the water that day, but had no effect on their drinking.  There was a very rowdy group of fisherman by the door that were several hours into their debauchery.

The meal was good and the company was great.  Melissa is a very easy person to get along with and always entertaining.  The salad bars in the middle of the country always make me laugh a little.  I like iceberg lettuce as much as the next guy, but I find it a bit odd when the next first topping past the lettuce is Oreo Fluff.  I like to mix flavors as much as anyone, but this is one I just couldn’t do.

Jess had been telling me stories of her grandfather’s store ever since we met.  There were stories of her being pushed around the rickety hardwood floors on a dolly and the excitement of having free reign on an ice cream freezer in a tiny general store owned by your grandfather in a town of 14.   Her Mom was raised in this tiny town called Aurora Center where the Church and the General Store were the center of everything.  We visited with Verna and Leon.  Verna grew up as a teenager working in the store, so she was able to tell us all of the old stories.  The tone that struck loudest throughout all of her stories though was the pride the her father took in the store and the love and pride that she took in him.  It was really very neat to see.  As she told the stories of this store in its heyday, you could literally sense the energy that this place used to have.

It is now run by Jess’s Uncle Sylvan and is no longer as critical the outlying community as it once was.  People are now a short drive from much larger stores, but despite this, the store still operates in the same manner as it once did.  They still use the same register, they use the same meat cutter and scale and they still allow customers to carry a running tab that is securely kept in an open metal box just behind the register.  I’ve got to believe that there are very few stores like this still operating around the country.

The find of the day was the spaceship-shaped penny gumball machine in the back storage room.  There were two of them peering down from the top shelf of the back stock room.  For Jess, it was love at first sight.  She asked Uncle Sylvan what would become of these beauties.  He said with a quick phone call to his son Byron, one could very well be hers.  So, she put in the call and Byron said she could have it for either $1000 or for free…her choice.  After much contemplation and a few calls to Elevations Credit Union, she opted for the free choice.

Wanting to send Jess away with all of the parts, it was crucial that we find the key to the door that keeps the pennies.  We tried every key on every keychain in the store, but none worked.  Sylvan then opened the lockbox within the register, which I don’t think he had ever opened in the 6 years that he has been running the store and there was a single small key that happened to be the very key to the gumball machine…and the crowd went wild!  Surprisingly, we also found Jess’s great grandfather’s Army dog tags in there as well.  If someone went poking around in that store, it is amazing what they would find.