Brooke and Heather Day

I took Wednesday off from work so I could spend the day with Brooke. We went on a few adventures.

First, we headed out to Thurmond Dam, by way of Pollard's Corner.

This is the way Brooke always used to go to the lake. Pollard's Corner is also on the way to Lincolnton, where I worked briefly in the summer of 2005.

After our stop to pick up sodas and snacks, we headed on to the dam. We went through Georgia until we got to the dam, which is different from the way I went last time. Last time I took 28 through Columbia County and into McCormick County before I got to the lake and river. This time we drove right over the dam to get to the Visitors Center.

The center was open, so we went in and looked at all the displays explaining about J. Strom Thurmond Dam. My favorite part was the window-walled room with views of the lake and pictures and discussions of the wildlife. We had a lot of fun with the bird call recordings; click here.

We went outside and took some pictures of the lake and dam, but it was pretty cold so we soon hopped back in the car and headed on. At this point we hit the field with the old turbine display.

Then we headed towards the dam...but instead of going immediately to the main observation area, we drove down to the boat ramp. I hadn't done that last time because I figured the road just ended at the water, but it turned out there was a broad parking lot there, and some great views of the river and dam.

Once we had our fill of this angle, we headed up to the observation area, where we snapped photos and sat in a porch swing for awhile.

Click here for a video.

On our way back from the dam, we stopped at the Bartram Trail golf community to see what we thought. The houses were mostly okay, but the yards were pretty small, and we didn't think we would want to live there. I'd previously had high hopes for the area so I was fairly disappointed, but I'm not expecting to ever live in a house that large anyway. Brooke and David are looking for a larger-sized home so they can host family from England, so it was unfortunate that the yards didn't meet Brooke's expectations.

Following that we went on a more mundane (but no less fun!) adventure:

After Brooke beat the pants off me for three games, we decided to go to downtown Augusta for awhile, picking up David on the way.

I need to find a camera that won't add random glowing pixels to night shots.

After that we stopped at the grocery store for supplies and then went to my apartment for dinner and Eton mess, which is ridiculously easy to make and amazingly delicious.

It was a long, fun day. I'm glad we were able to spend so much time together!