Monday, July 14, 2008

Day 2 Hartwell


I arrived in Hartwell around 10 AM yesterday morning prepared to explore the lake, to find out if the research I'd done on the internet was accurate.

I was disappointed to find that I wasn't able to get to the shoreline because of paid access to park roads and gated communities and marinas. So this picture is typical of what I was able to see, mostly from the highway.

I will visit another lake Friday on my way back to Atlanta in hopes of viewing examples of the foliage, housing, geographical environment and community to finish the world building for my series.

Today I drove around a local waterfront community gathering pictures and ideas for future books. Then I did a little shopping at the Home Goods store and Bed Bath and Beyond where I found some beautiful square dishes with a wine and cheese theme.

My cousin, Pete, for whom I named one of my characters, is visiting from Vietnam. The last time I saw him, he took me on a real insiders tour of D.C. I saw places I'd never known about growing up there. Tomorrow we will see our cousin, Carol, in Va who hasn't seen Pete in 40 years! It's a mini cousin reunion!

Last night he gave me the Google earth tour of the buildings he's built in Vietnam, commenting that the greatest thing that's happened in his lifetime is the internet. He used to have his sister order construction manuals and ship them to Vietnam. Now, everything he needs is online.

Gotta, go. I'm off my diet for this trip and we're fixing to go to an ice cream place for dessert. Later, gator.

1 comment:

Leah Braemel said...

Is that red sand on the beach? or just red dirt? And if that's your lake from your OTHR, it's not how I pictured it at all!

Pretty bad when you can't get near lakes, although a lot of lakes up here are ringed by cottages, so sometimes finding access to them can be difficult, it's not like they're gated communities. Plus we've got so many thousands of lakes in our area, you don't usually have to drive more than a couple miles to find a different one.

Hope you enjoy your mini-cousin reunion. And I agree with Pete - without the internet I wouldn't have met hardly any of my 'writing buddies'