Trespassers Will Be Shot - Country Living

This weekend my husband and I went on another one of our 'family fun on a budget' trips, and it was great! Moving to a new area every few years just demands that we do this on a regular basis, we want to see as much as we can see before it's time for another job transfer or whatever else the Lord has in store for us. I have to say though, this was one of the most interesting trips we've ever taken!

Determined to relieve our winter cabin fever, we grabbed a few snacks for the road, piled the kids in the car, and drove off for another sightseeing adventure. The best thing about these family trips we take is that they are practically free, and we get to see places we've never seen before. The worst part is that after a few hours the kids are ready to go home, stop for dinner, stop for a bathroom, or all of the above. They get along well for the most part, but there are times when a sibling dispute between the three older ones can cause my husband and I to give each other the look, you know, the look of 'why did we have these children?' We just try to breath and relax, knowing the trip will be worth it in the end.

We don't always have a destination in mind, but this time we did. A nearby mountain lake that has been calling our name since we moved here a year ago. Yes, I know, it's not even spring yet, but don't worry, we took our coats too. We had made several plans to look around the lake last summer, but with t-ball games and my husband's busy work schedule, we just never made it out. Once we got there we stopped at a realtors office for a map, of course she wanted to sell us a house on the spot, wanting our name rank and serial number as well, but we managed to escape with just the map and not a new mortgage to go with it.

We drove around the lake, checked out the campsites for future family outings, and then we found the beach. Now most big lakes have some kind of beach, though they are very small and usually too crowded to enjoy. But, this being the 'off-season,' we had the place all to ourselves. It's no comparison to the sandy white beaches of the gulf coast that we're used to, but it was pretty nice. Our one year old was very impressed, and her smile alone was worth the entire trip. We walked along the shoreline, sat on the boat docks, and just enjoyed the serenity of God's country. That took care of the cabin fever, at least for now.

On our walk back to the car, we found some pinecones still attached to a branch, I wish I could take a picture of it for you it is so unique. And yes, we managed to get it home in one piece for the kids to take to show and tell later this week. Most of the pinecones were so cute and tiny; they looked like little baby pinecones. When a pinecone starts to grow, the tip end looks like a flower and the rest of the body must fill in later. They are just beautiful.

As we started to drive home, my husband said he really wanted to go see the dam that was located on the exact opposite side of the lake from where we were. This may not sound very interesting if you've never gone to see one, but for some reason, everywhere we've lived, we've gone exploring to the nearby lakes and dams. They are just interesting and not something you see every day that's for sure. The main dilemma was, if we turned back and went home it would be about two hours to home. If we went around the back of the lack, it might be more like three. We pondered the decision for a few minutes, deciding of course to seize the day!

Driving around the backside of the lake took at least an hour, and we were definitely in rural country. Have you ever seen those posted signs on trees along the edge of someone's property, the ones that say "No Hunting, No Fishing, Private Property, etc." Well, usually these signs are placed 500-1000 feet apart. But as we traveled along this back road we saw something we'd never seen before. We must have been driving through some very prime hunting grounds, because the No Hunting signs had been posted on almost ever tree, there must have been hundreds of them. If that wasn't strange enough, occasionally we saw a few of the signs torn down, one of them burned up, and a few other signs with twenty or more bullet holes.

When you're driving in a rural area, as we often do, the last thing you want to see is bullet holes! It reminded me of a trip we took a few months ago, just a few miles from our house, and we drove past a rural house that had a custom made sign on the gated driveway that read "Trespassers Will Be Shot." Being the crazy people we are, we even stopped and took a picture of that one!

Anyway, we made it through the back roads of the lake, but only after a pickup truck pulled up out of nowhere and followed us out the last few miles. My husband said to me "do you think he's following us?" I answered "honey I don't think so, I think he just lives there and is driving out to the main road like we are." It was so funny, I'm sure you're having a good chuckle yourself.

We finally made it off the back roads, and as usual, we got to our destination just before the park closed, so we didn't get to see much from the top of the dam, but what we did see was still pretty neat. Thankfully the bathrooms were still open so we were at least able to take a well needed potty break. At the bottom of the dams there are always picnic areas along the river, though I still haven't figured out why people find these places so pleasant that they want to stop and have a picnic.

Yesterday my 5 and 7 year old boys were gathering up supplies from around the house to make a pretend lake, dam, and river just from what they had seen for that brief moment in time, I guess it left quite an impression on them too. We managed to make it back home after about 7 or 8 hours we had made several other stops along the way. Including a stop at a tiny airport to wave at the two parachute jumpers that had just jumped as we drove by. When we spotted them in mid-air, we had stopped on the side of the road to watch them glide down, until we almost caused an accident with the oncoming cars in front of us and the ones behind us trying to go around almost hitting each other.

After that we decided to drive over to the airport and get a closer look. When we got there, the two jumpers had gathered up their chutes and were already walking across the field right towards us. The boys opened the back windows and practically fell out of the car they were trying so desperately to get a closer look. We waved, they waved, and it was a great day and all for about $5 worth of gas.