Yea God!

Friday night a few of us went camping on Lake Travis where we all grew up going to summer camp.  The drought has certainly taken it's toll on the lake.

I remember back in 1978 or 79 when the lake was being drained for the rice farmers in Bay City as they suffered through a drought.  One of the counselors told me, and others, that the boat dock cove had never dried up and they'd never found a bottom even when the lake was really low.

I was impressed by that, and always remembered it.  So when I'd watched all summer as the lake levels continued to drop it was important to me to go and see this cove in particular when we camped.  You can see from these two pictures, that it is indeed quite low, but there is also still plenty of water in there too; relative to some other pictures you'll see in a minute (if you keep reading).

It would be better visually if these two pictures would line up side by side so you could get the 'flow', but know that they should slide together and line up nicely.




When the lake is full this is a massive area of water and the boat dock floats with plenty of space to maneuver boats around the cove as you are learning to sail, row or water ski.  Not sure how much of that happened this summer; at least not later in the summer for sure.















It was very odd to see so much river bed area exposed, but then when the area hasn't had significant rainfall since last October these things happen.

Here is a shot that I never thought I'd be able to take standing in the middle of Driftwood Cove.

or this one just a little further into the lake.  Some, ok one smarter than the rest of us, didn't want to risk life and limb to climb down the shifty rocks.

Then we found these Christmas trees, buried in cement with plastic tubes coming out of the cement.  Perhaps someone's cast off tannenbaum from last Christmas?

But wait there were more of them, everywhere in this area, some with less tree left than others.  I finally decided they were for fish habitats.

Wait, what's that in the sky???  A cloud??? 

Quick kids, climb up on the giant exposed rock.

While the adults stood on the sandy banks near the water fifty feet below the top edge of the normal lake levels.

Then we heard the strangest sound....and the weirdest thing started to happen.  You could have called me Chicken Little, I was sure the sky was falling.

But instead it was actual rain coming from the sky.  That made all the moms hurry the kids and ourselves up the sheer rock cliffs behind them in the picture.

It was a good hard rain, and those rocks were starting to get slippery.  Nearly to the top, I witnessed E (in the yellow shirt) slide back down a ways catching herself about 3" from going over the edge of it all.  All of the kids were mad at me the rest of the time I was there because I wouldn't let them go back down on the rocks.

Rain fell all Saturday evening and night, though I only camped on Friday night because of other obligations on Sunday.  I heard that they had a good time, and sleeping in the middle of the 'tents' kept them from getting too wet.

By Sunday afternoon, there were signs of life.  Just a bit of refreshment and the earth was literally rejoicing.

Plants that I'd completely given up on were already blooming!

New leaves were coming out on trees that appeared to be finished growing for the season.

and even the grass, yes, this is my yard, was showing some signs of life.

God's timing is perfect and I am thankful that He is in control.

Yea God!  We are so thankful for the rain, but I am so thankful for Him.