Well, why not? It’s my blog and I can digress if I want to. It doesn’t have to be all about Mineral King, drawing, oil painting, and Three Rivers—okay, the beach, odd jobs, drawing lessons, the business of art, editing, or plein air painting either.

This is the eighth summer reunion with my childhood friend at her Hume Lake cabin. Hume Lake Christian Camp was established in 1946 on a lake in Sequoia National Forest which began as a timber pond. From there, logs were sent almost 60 miles downstream (to Sanger) on a wooden flume to be turned into lumber. Maybe it was called a “lumber pond”. . . I wasn’t born yet. The camp is a very active place, with over 300 private cabins on leased land above the conference grounds. The lake fronts the Christian camp with a 3 mile trail around it, a dam on the east end (weird to me that a lake drains east, but it goes into Kings Canyon instead of the Pacific Ocean), with a Forest Service campground, fishing, and two ways in and out of the area.

This is looking northeast, past the dam into the majestic spires of Kings Canyon.

A large amount of time was spent on this deck.

A fair amount of time was also spent indoors. It was a hot weekend. An entire day was spent waiting for a tree crew to finish limbing and dropping trees around the cabin; we needed to be present but it was somewhat treacherous outdoors.

There were several walks around the lake.

We had a nice afternoon on the lake. There were kayaks, paddle boards, canoes, but I pushed for a rowboat so I could do the rowing. Eventually my two pals couldn’t stand the idleness of passenger living, and I had to share the oars.

On a somewhat solitary walk around the lake (my companions declined but there were plenty of strangers), I left the trail and followed the road back to camp because I wanted to see the cabins on Forest Service land. (Does this surprise you?)

We had other adventures, much conversation and laughter, good food (but almost no sweets because we are all fighting sugar, which took remarkable restraint since Hume’s Snack Shack is known for its milkshakes), some excellent Bible teaching (it is a big deal Christian camp so there are always outstanding speakers available), and there were a handful of moments of What Happens at Hume Stays at Hume.

See you next year, Hume Lake (if my dear friend from childhood chooses to continue our tradition.)

P.S. OF COURSE it was a business trip, my first in Mom’s Car. (That’s the car’s name for now.)