Men and Boys Overnight at Bent Tree

November 15-16, 2013

We headed out to Bent Tree in pouring rain on Friday night for an overnight. This is our traditional parting picture on the Bent Tree dam. L-R John Ford, Jordan, David, Dylan Bates, Austin, Johnny Huffman, Joe Burkhardt, Riley Brooks.

After the rainy drive up and the unloading of our gear, we had a supper of chili and hotdogs which Brenda had prepared the night before. David had picked up his boys, Jordan and Austin, from school and met Johnny on the way. Our two vehicles reached Bent Tree at about the same time.

The boys gathered at their table. None of us went hungry.

David and Austin try out the ping-pong table. The four boys alternated between ping-pong battles and active games of hide-and-seek up and down the stairs.

Dylan and Riley hold down one end of the table in a doubles match.

Thanks to John and Johnny for getting up and making coffee and fixing a fine breakfast. John made pancakes on the small grill and Johnny cooked sausage. We had a fine breakfast of pancakes, sausage and eggs. The boys had settled down after an hour or so of talking, and at least I got a pretty good night's sleep.

Jordan gets involved in cracking the eggs and Austin helps stir. I think they were anxious for breakfast!

John gets fancy with some pancake art - mickey mouse ears and swirls. Austin in particular was very impressed and wanted one of each.

Johnny brings some sausage to Austin and Jordan to go with their special pancakes.

Riley and Dylan had disappeared up the mountain behind the house and we had to call them back down for breakfast. It looks like they are making up for lost time though.

The men finally sit down to an abundant breakfast, thanks to the efforts of John and Johnny.

The boys roamed up the mountain and down on the roads, including going down steep Buckskull Ct. Austin found a neat grape vine and had a good time swinging. It reminded me of Mark swinging on vines as far back as 1976.

The weather never cleared significantly for us and we had to scratch the hike to the top of the mountain because the mountain tops were covered with cloud and we had intermittent rain. It was even too soggy for a pleasant picnic at the spillway, so we had our traditional peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich lunch at the house.

We headed down to the lake by the Tamarack route and found that the washout from the August 1 torrential rain had not yet been fixed. So we backtracked and approached the lake over the dam. There were still some colorful leaves at this level, but the clouds were down to the treetops.

The guys had a little over an hour to play around near the waterfall and the pool below it. This was the place where they spent most of the time.

I was pleased to see that the severe storm of midsummer had not greatly changed the waterfall area.

The bank by the pool had been cut back a good bit, but the hard rock protected the area of the falls.

This colorful maple enhanced the beauty of the waterfall.

Back to our traditional group shot on the dam overlooking Lake Tamarack. Despite less than ideal weather, everyone seemed to have a good time and we praise God for the opportunity for fellowship together.