Rod and Jordan to Bent Tree

The Bent Tree Pavilion had been reserved for a picnic for the Iglesia de Mableton congregation for today, so Jordan and I went up to check on that and to check on the house. They had a beautiful day for the picnic and probably 30 people came.

I enjoyed the drive up with Jordan, and was pleased for her to get to see the lake and mountains in the summertime. Our recent trips up have been at Thanksgiving when things look very different.

From the little fishing dock below the Pavilion we got a good view of the length of Lake Tamarack down to the dam at the far end.

Jordan put up her hammock by the lake for a while. I was interested to know that she studies in the hammock in the park near Loyola. She also told me that she slept in the hammock on their mission trip to Piedras Negras.

We explored the beach for a while to see the multiple bream beds that annually are built next to the beach. My understanding is that the male gaurds the bed, but we had to sneak up on the bed because he would zip away when we got about ten feet from him.

I also wanted Jordan to see how the yellow swallotails gather on the sand, reportedly to get minerals from the sand. I have seen several together in the past at Bent Tree and at Sweetwater Park.

We decided to go to the other end of the lake. With this nice view of the stream that leads from the lake to the waterfall we can see clearly the location of our house if you know where to look.

I guided Jordan's fingertip until she pointed at the location of our house up on Big Stump Mountain. The tiny notch to the right of her fingertip is the road cut below our house.

We had quite a bit of rain over the past few days and the waterfall was running very strongly. I shot this at about 1/800 sec to sharpen the features of the water motion.

We have enjoyed this waterfall for over forty years. It never ceases to be a pleasant place.

Jordan with the falls as background. She had been here with the family several times, one time being 10 years ago.

We climbed up to the upper falls and enjoyed the sound of the waterfall around us. I played around with shooting at high speed to stop the water - this was shot at 1/800sec.

We drove up to the house and checked it over and found it to be in good shape. Jordan got to see it in the deep woods phase of summer. We stopped back by to say goodbye to the picnicers at the Pavilion and headed back toward Atlanta.