last week at the lake for this year

This is our last week.    Visiting is over.  Second cup and Happy Hour on the dock are done.    The contents of the cottage's freezer has been moved into Beluga's freezer.    Bedding is washed and hung outside to dry and take on a lovely, summer smell.   Docks are out of the water and stacked on the lawn.

Our weather has been up and down since I last wrote, but now it is just down.   It's fall.  The leaves are pretty but it's cool (cold) and sometimes sunny but mostly grey and wet.  It reminds us daily why we drive away right about now.

wind whips the lake

Dave has been busy doing a few things around Beluga.    Normal maintenance and spiffing up, plus a few niggling jobs he hasn't had time for.

carefully touching up the road freckles on Beluga's nose

fixing a pesky leveling jack leak

the culprits!   These o rings are supposed to be round!

While Dave was cleaning the engine and greasing the water pump he marveled, once again, at how hot the underside of the engine cover had gotten as a result of a leak in the exhaust manifold a few years ago.    If he hadn't caught it when he did we would have had a nasty fire.     We now have a fire suppressant system in place on the engine for peace of mind.

taking out the dock bolts in preparation for removal

where will Mr. Kingfisher sit now?

time for a little play time between the boys

fishing from shore isn't nearly as fun as on the dock, Lewis says

Before all this boring work started we did have a little fun.    One evening we drove into Williamsville (a suburb of Buffalo) to a cousin's reunion.      My family is quite small, just 3 cousins on my father's side and 2 on my mother's side (we saw them earlier this summer).      Cousin Linda was kind enough to offer her house so we could all get together while cousin David and his wife were in town.     On our way there Dave and I took a little extra time to drive around our old neighborhoods, passing our old homes and talking about our young lives.     Look what we found....

should we move there?

We all had a great time catching up with each other's lives and the evening seemed to fly by. 

what's left of the Beyer clan!

The next day we went to Sampson State Park on the shores of Seneca Lake.   The draw was the annual Wine Country Dog Show and we never pass up a dog show!

We're always taken by the many ways man has influenced the shapes and temperaments of the domestic dog.

we shorten their noses

or we lengthen their noses

we give some of them short legs and some of them long
we give some tails and some no tail

we carefully sculpt some...

and demand some are tangled

Honestly, we weren't impressed with the show this year.   The turnout didn't seem as large or as varied as in past years.    We love seeing all the different breeds and the individuals within those breeds but didn't stay the whole day.    We went looking for something else to do.

Sampson State Park sits on the site of the former Sampson Air Force Base and before that it was a Naval Training Station so the 2000 acre park is criss crossed by decaying asphalt roads leading to nowhere, sometimes displaying a placard showing what once was. 

One such placard pointed to the "Pioneer cemetery" so off we went.    We drove about 2 or 3 miles without seeing anyone or anything as the road became more narrow.

Nope....no cemetery, no nothing.    All we found was a really creepy, broken up road that came to an abrupt end.   The surrounding area was deeply and thoroughly overgrown and if the "Pioneers" were buried there they'll be left in peace.   Ah well.

gratuitous Lewis picture

chilly mornings often give us beautiful mist rising on the lake

Next post will be from the road - Yay!