Today was going to be a day of relaxation and rest. Well, I don’t know if we relaxed and rested, but we had a lot of fun. All I knew was that I wanted to start on the bike I had bought the day before. About noon I started working on it. I know that bike chains have a link that is different than all the rest and that is where you take it apart. Well for the life of me I could not find it. I soaked it in 3-in-1 oil and looked for more than half an hour. Tam even looked, but we just could not find that dang link. I was going to soak the chain in oil for a week or so, but after all that I decided to just use the 3-in-1 oil instead. While I was doing that I also started oiling all the other parts of the bike. After soaking the brake and shifter linkages in oil, they worked beautiful. The only part that I have not tried as of yet is the shifter levers. But I have no doubt they will work fine also. While I was working on the bike, Tam informed me that she did not want to sit around all afternoon, that she wanted to go and do something.
After cleaning up from messing with the bike, Tam decided we were going to check out Sylvan Lake. We had been told by quite a number of people that it is a beautiful lake. And they were not kidding!! It is a small lake, but the water is so peaceful and quiet. There were a number of large boulders the size if houses sticking out of the water and along the shoreline. Because of a light rain falling, I was not able to take very many pictures and eventually put my equipment back in the truck. Tammi and I decided to go for a walk along the trail the circles the lake. We started out on the west side, moving south, passing the large boulders that form most of the west shoreline. There were quite a number of young people fishing, and they were having good success. As we reached the south end of the lake, the path turned towards the east. Several boulders towering 100 feet above the water form the south side of the lake. As we walked through what seemed an almost enchanted forest, we rounded the corner where the large boulders started. The air grew quiet and the light dimmed with the shade of the tall forest trees. After a few minutes of walking through this, we came across what at first appeared to be an insurmountable obstacle. A small jagged hill with no apparent pathway over was in front of us. But with a little investigating I found the trail once again and we continued on our journey. Once we were on the other side of the hill, you could faintly hear the sound of running water. Not sure where it was coming from we proceeded until you the sound was loud enough that the source had to be close. To our amazement, in a crack in the huge rock, there was a water fall. The water was actually coming from the other side through the rock and falling some 30 feet to the ground. As I showed this to Tam, I asked her if she remembered the old cartoons, where a character takes on rock from a dam and the whole thing collapses. Her eyes grew large as she realized that the water level was above us on the other side and she literally turned and ran to higher ground!! What a chicken baby!! Once I had caught up to her we could see the small dam on the east side of this wall of rock. It was 30 feet wide and maybe 50 feet tall, with a walkway and railing in top. A trail leading deeper in the forest continued south, but that is for another time. We were not properly outfitted for a long hike, and you don’t want to see everything the first time or there would be no reason to go back. We turned the corner and moved back towards the lake. By hugging the rocks and stepping on small stones that form a path, it is possible to stand on the dam. The view was wonderful. Of course Tam was not going to get on it, with her fear of heights. With her leg hurting, we decided it was time to head back to the truck and we still had the second half of the lake to walk around. All in all, it was a wonderful and fulfilling afternoon. We are planning to go back for the whole day in two weeks, where we can sit and watch the sun set, thinking about how glad we are to be alive and to live here.
to view my own homebuilt website visit: http://midco.rap.net/pauliemac
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