Rollins Pond

I got up this morning and got ready to head out.  I chatted with the guy at Meadowbrook and figured out how to transfer my reservation, well sorta, I can make a new reservation for Rollins Pond and apply to the state and they will give me my money back for the Meadowbrook reservation eventually.  I was able to get a waterfront site at Rollins Pond for tonight, I’m going to have to change sites everyday but that’s ok because I’m going out each day anyway and I’d rather have a lakeside site that I can swim right from than stay in the same site. 

It was about 10:30 by the time I made my way from Meadowbrook over to Rollins Pond and got parked up in my amazing site!  I’m in site 191 tonight and it’s just perfect!  It’s got a long “driveway” and then ends in a large flat spot.  I was able to turn the RV so that the sliding door opens to the water and it’s perfectly level!  There’s no one else around so I have total privacy!

It’s been sunny and warm almost all summer up here, until today.  The forecast was for another hot muggy day with severe thunderstorms and heavy rain this afternoon.  As I was coming into the campground the rain started.  But, it let up and it got to be mostly cloudy, but dry and the sun was peeking out. 

Dad and I decided to rent kayaks and explore the lake!  Rollins Pond is a medium size lake – it’s 1.7 miles long, but it has a lot of little coves and “bumps” in the shoreline.   We rode our bikes down to the boat rental place and as we were arriving the wind was picking up and the clouds were moving in.  We were wondering if this was a good idea.  We decided as long as it wasn’t thundering it would be ok and launched the kayaks.   The wind wasn’t quite so bad as we made our way around to the 1st cove. 

We paddled along the campground side of the lake and looked for our sites.  Just when I found mine – had look hard to see it through the trees, the rain started.  It crossed my mind to beach the kayaks and hide in my RV, but I was prepared to be wet and it wasn’t cold and there wasn’t any thunder.  It was just a little mist at 1st, then harder, and harder and harder!  Soon it was pouring rain!  We were out in the middle of the lake and the rain was coming down hard!  It was pretty cool to see the drops hitting the water and it sounded almost like hail, but it wasn’t.  Almost as quickly as it started it began to clear up! Soon it was sunny and muggy! 

In the break of sun I decided it was time to beach the kayaks and go for a swim! I found a rocky spot with a nice beach and pulled my kayak up on the sand.  Dad was a ways back but he soon caught up and beached his kayak.  He climbed to the top of the rock and told me it was an island!  I decided I needed to swim around the island so headed out!  It was a long way around, but it was a good swim.  We got back in the kayaks and headed back towards the boat rental place, but kept checking out things on the shoreline as we went.  

We found a big cove away from the main body of the lake and there was a mamma loon and her baby hanging out.  They didn’t seem to mind that we were there and we ended up getting closer than we meant to.  By this time I could see big thunderheads forming above!  They were HUGE and quite cool.  As neat as they were to see, it was making me nervous because I didn’t want to be out on the lake in a thunderstorm!

We kept paddling around the edge of the lake, I was heading to the bottom of the lake and then around.  I saw the boat launch place on the other side of the lake and was happy that we were close in case the weather turned ugly.  Then there was a clap of thunder!  I looked back at Dad and he pointed to the opposite shore, where the boat launch was, and off I went.  It was def a  “see how fast you can paddle” situation!  I didn’t seem to be making much progress and it started raining!  Also out in the middle of the lake it was windy.  Hmmm…maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to go across the lake just then, we might have been better off just hugging the shore.  Finally the other shore got closer and closer! We made it across and beached the kayaks and we were getting ready to turn in the paddles and the life jackets when the sky started getting lighter!  There were no more claps of thunder and by the time we got on our bikes to go back to our site the rain had stopped and the sun was out.  Figures. 

Since it wasn’t storming when we got back I went for another swim at my site.  Dad decided he needed to test out out his new life jacket he’d gotten at LLBean so he came over too.  The lake by my campsite is very shallow and you have to go way out to really swim.  It would be a great spot if you had small kids, they could have plenty of space to play in the water without getting too deep!  I swam back and forth in front of my site a few times and then decided I was waterlogged and it was time to get dry. 

I got cleaned up and then packed a few things to take to Mom and Dad’s coach for dinner/evening.  As I was packing to leave the wind started picking up again – it was a nice cool breeze and it was very pleasant at my site.  I rode my bike to their site and as I was setting out, I heard thunder!  Mom and Dad’s site wasn’t quite as nice because they were running the generator and it was noisy.  Soon though the storm blew in proper – the wind was whipping off the lake and the rain came fast and furious. 

The rain has cooled things off significantly!  Tomorrow should be really nice – highs in the 70s and lows in the 40s! Yes, that’s right, the 40s! ahhhhh!!!!!!  Tomorrow Dad and I are hiking Ampersand Mountain – it’s "”only” 3000 ft high but we have to climb 1700 of those feet so it won’t be much different from Cascade Mt.