JORDAN LAKE ~ long-time friends and a pontoon ride

How was your weekend?

Mine was jam packed with "old" friends, a pontoon boat ride, and a barbecue.

Have you ever seen one of those huge campers driving down the highway and wondered "How do you park one of those things?"

Well, we had a visit from some long-time friends (40 years long) who own one of those said campers..or as they call it "A fifth wheel".

They drove from Atlanta to the Outer Banks of NC, to Washington, D.C then came to visit us on their way back home. They hooked up their camper to a campsite at Jordan Lake in Pittsboro, NC which is about 15 minutes west of us. After they hooked up their camper at the campsite, they drove over to our house for dinner. We had so much fun sitting around the dining table sharing old stories and catching up since we hadn't seen each other in years.

The next morning we went to their campsite. It was right on the lake so the scenery was beautiful.

Now, I AM NOT A REAL CAMPER… a real camper being defined as a tent pitching, fire with sticks, hole digging, living off the land kind of camper.

The way our friends (I'll call them Mr. & Mrs. T and their beautiful daughter Ms. K) camp is MY kind of camping. Their camper has a beautiful kitchen, a living room with a tv and fireplace, leather recliners, a master bedroom and a bathroom….yes I said a bathroom!! It was beautiful!!

When we were planning our friends' visit, we found a 1/2 off coupon on Groupon for a Jordan Lake boat tour. We met our tour guide, David, on his pontoon boat at 10 o'clock on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning.

It was a two hour tour and we saw bald eagles' nests and turtles, beavers' dam, osprey and blue heron, a red-tailed hawk, and lots of comorants. David was full of lots and lots of interesting trivia about the lake. We couldn't have asked for a better day with better company. It was so much fun! I apologize for the quality of the pictures. We were ready to take beautiful pictures with our camera but we forgot the memory card so I had to use my back-up…the iphone.

Jordan Lake is a man-made lake created for two purposes: 1) flood control and 2) drinking water for the surrounding towns including ours. This is the Jordan Lake dam.

We had a big storm that knocked down two baby eaglets out of their nest who did not survive the fall.

Blue Heron

This osprey took flight right after this picture was taken. Beautiful bird.

This is a huge osprey nest. The tree was hit by lightning so the bare tree top is a good choice for the osprey.

David had an "eagle eye" (forgive the pun) when it came to finding the eagles around the lake. This eagle was playing hide-and-seek with us. We never got to see an eagle in flight but it was exciting to see them. They are such beautiful, majestic bird.

An osprey in flight. WOW!

This is a small island in the middle of the lake full of these dead trees where comorants made their nests.

Here are a bunch of comorants. I'm thinking of the Sesame Street song "One of these things is not like the other, one of these things doesn't belong."

This is what Dave called a beaver man cave. When a female beaver woos him, the two of them build a beaver lodge together. How romantic is that?!

Mr. and Mrs. Beaver's lodge plus a bunch of family and friend beavers.

I love the slide on the back of this boat. Nice way to cool off!

After the tour, we headed to Mr. & Mrs. T's campsite. We played games and talked and ate and talked and ate some more.

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art….

It has no survival value; rather it is one

of those things that gives value to survival."

~C.S. Lewis

I was reminded this week that friendship is a thing to be treasured. True friends are a rare and wonderful thing. It's that person that you haven't seen in years, but when you come together again, it's as if you spoke yesterday.