July 4th - Back to the Lake

My brother Chris, who is an Board Certified ER doctor in Arlington, VA, came over to visit. We haven't seen him for almost 2 years, so it was fun to have him there. We originally had tickets to ride the Amtrack train from Charlotsville to Stanton, VA, through a tunnel in the mountain. But, with the storm, trains were not getting through from West Virginia because of debris on the track or other damage. So, we decided to pack up and head back to the Sherando Lake.

Chris and Kathie (I guess you can tell we are siblings)...

We set off swimming to the island. (Kate and Spencer took the pathway around and met us there.) Zack swam most of the way across and then stood up when he got to a section that was shallow enough. He said he felt something push up against his leg and it hurt. He says he did not slip and scrap his leg. But his leg had two big scrape marks and it was bleeding a little.

His leg later that day...We determinded that it was the Lake-ness Monster. We don't know what really happened.

After being on the island for a while and jumping off the rocks, where Uncle Chris did flips of the rocks and even Spencer got in on the jumping, we were sitting in the sun on the other side. Kammie was down in the water on some rocks. We heard a guy say: "There is a snake. I think it's a cotton mouth." We moved Kammie and a few minutes later we all saw the snake in the water. It reappeared and came up out of the water where Kammie had just been. After that, none of us wanted to get back in the water and swim back. But, we had to get in the water one way or the other to get back, so we hurried past the shore at the island where the snake had been seen and swam back across as fast as we could.

We ended our time there, playing in the sand. We didn't get the camera out until then.

Spencer all covered with sand...
Kate digging away...
Zacky boy...