Lake Lanier

As many of you probably know, Coleson and I used to have a boat. This was back before a hefty mortage payment, tuition for a master's degree, and a baby :) We kept the boat in our garage and would put it in at War Hill Park, I'd say an average of once a week. It was a wonderful summer and I have lots of great memories of our boat (and of course bad ones too, like Coleson yelling at me when I'd try to drive the boat up on to the trailer; Coleson likes to say if we hadn't sold the boat, we'd probably be divored by now.) Anyways.

So yesterday afternoon, Ryan and I decided to get out for a walk and some fresh air. I headed up to War Hill Park, which I hadn't been to in probably two years. Now, like everyone else in Georgia, I know Lake Lanier is way down. But I didn't really know it until I saw it firsthand. And saw it somewhere where I have clear memories of the old days, thus allowing me to really put it all in perspective. I was totally caught off guard. The boat ramps are of course closed; there'd be no way to get a boat into the water. Then there's the metal dock where we used to swing back around to and pick up our passengers once we were in the water. Yea, that dock is dry and sits probably 30 feet from the new waterline. It was just crazy.

I think what really got me though was how deserted the whole place was. I'll give you that it was a Wednesday afternoon, but still there was no other signs of life anywhere. I really felt like the world could have ended. There were no cars, no boats on the water, nothing. And get this, I actually walked to what used to be an island; I had driven a boat across where I was walking. Kinda hard to believe. It was all very humbling.

I felt sad at first, that we had allowed this to happen. That we had ruined something so beautiful. But then I remembered that Lake Lanier is man-made, so I'm not really sure what to make of that. We created it, but then we destroyed it. Not sure how that fits into the big picture and being good stewards and all that, way over my head. All I know is, what was once a beautiful and fun-filled lake is now, for all practical purposes, gone. Yes, they advertise that 70% of the lake is still there on those feel-good boating commercials, but I don't know that I would go out on it. There are trees sticking up out of the middle of the water. It's a totally different lake than it used to be and I'm not willing to risk my marriage by driving a boat across a newly forming island. :)