Okay, I posted some nice photos from Lake Martin, but I couldn't type the whole story up on my iPhone. It was the trip from Hell. Booking the house was a pain, and we almost didn't have anywhere to stay this year, but it worked out after a few false starts. We'd gotten used to a great house where every family had their own bathroom, and every couple (4 couples, plus kids for a total of 12 people) had a king bed. Heaven. This year there was one king bed, couple of queens, a bunk room, and 2 twins. The good thing was that everybody had their own bathroom and the dock was just steps from the house - nice.
Unfortunately, it rained every minute of every day for a couple of weeks before we got there, and on our second day, the septic tank backed up....right into my bathroom and twin bedroom....and also my mom's bathroom. This was discovered about an hour after we discovered that Jim's pontoon boat had 2 dead batteries, and Scott's jet ski also had a dead battery. Plans were being made to get the boat back across the lake to the marina, and Scott was going to Birmingham to get parts for the jet ski. We went ahead with those plans after calling the owners about getting a plumber out. Several of us made about 4 trips from Eclectic to Dadeville (45 minutes each way) just in that one day, either by boat or by car, to deal with the pontoon boat issue. At around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we still hadn't seen a plumber, and my SIL was ready to start cooking her chimichangas. Frantic phone calls were made, and it ended up that they couldn't fix the septic tank until the NEXT DAY. (
You can't use any water until it's fixed, just FYI, and if you're eating Mexican, you know somebody's gonna need a bathroom.) We decided to all head to Auburn, where my mom and Jim have a condo. There were a couple of other condos empty that we rented, and we ended up having an awesome Mexican dinner and plenty of margaritas.
The next day we headed back to the lake, and the septic specialists showed up, as well as the maid service to sanitize the joint, so we were back in business...except for more rain. It was the last full day we had before we could get in a nice boat ride and some good tubing for the kids. So on the last day, my sister took off first to drive back to North Carolina...except her window suddenly dropped down in the door while she was driving and shattered. They had to divert to Auburn, where it was several hours to get a temporary replacement, so they stayed in yet another condo and got back a day later than planned. She told me they were waiting for something to happen to me, since I was the only one who hadn't suffered a mechanical breakdown of some sort. (
I thought sewage in my room was enough, but apparently not.)
So there we were yesterday, safely back at the beach and having boated over to a restaurant for some lunch, when the worst storm I've seen lately happened. I have a real nice video of the lightning and thunder that I posted to FB, but I didn't get it to Youtube in time....see, there was a hole in the dry bag where we put our phones after that, and by the time we made it back to the house, there was about half a cup of water in there with my phone. I guess I got mine too...and now you know why I don't have any photos to go with this post. Hey - go have a great week!
