Chapter 7

I pulled my Hyundai Accent out onto my cul-de-sac of a street and through the maze of roads in my development toward the main entrance. If you didn’t carefully watch where you were going in here, made a wrong turn, you would be lost in a quick moment. For the uninitiated, it could take them a while to become untangled.

As I maneuvered through the maze, Lindie kept silent but her ever present hand remained on my right thigh. When I got to the community’s exit I headed toward the interstate. Once we hit the main road, steering was not twisty-turny like development driving. I freed my right hand and soon it found its way to Lindie’s.

Out of the blue, for no reason at all, I thought about my choice of cars. I started to tell Lindie about it, I guess, just for conversation. “I’m glad I wound up with this car,” I told her.

“Why’s that,” she asked at my seemingly unusual conversation subject.

“Well,” I told her, “I wanted a small and inexpensive car. Whatever it was, my budget could only support one no more than about $10,000. So my choices were limited.

“I really wasn’t looking for a new car,” I told her as I glanced over to her for a few seconds. “Price was more important than being new.

“Well, I wanted a yellow car too,” I commented.

“Ah,” Lindie said. “I understand that one. Ribbons ... Right?”

I laughed. She was right on target with that one. “Yup,” I answered. “Yellow is my favorite color.”

I don’t think anything ever got by Lindie. She absentmindedly brushed her hand over the red ribbon in her hair as she slyly looked over at me to tell me, “Hair ribbons.

“Yellow and red are my favorite colors,” she said.

“Anyway, I was shopping for a 3-door Hyundai Accent and love their yellow. Unfortunately, everyone seems to want the yellow. That model comes in lots of colors, but it seems that is the ONLY Hyundai model that comes in yellow. They were out of stock in yellow.

“So, I asked the salesman if they had it in red. ‘Nope’ he told me. ‘Just black, white and gray are the only colors we have on the lot, ‘ he said. I thought for a minute. Not one of this year’s model was in stock was in red either. I liked the idea of the 3-door model and the Accent is the cheapest Hyundai. Like I said, the one that fit my pocketbook.

“Looking at his stock book the salesman told me they did have last year’s model in red and he’d match the price. Voila’ 4-door RED Hyundai Accent!”

As we passed a sign telling us that Spider Lake Park was 20 miles ahead, I paused and smiled at Lindie. “Now, I’m glad I got the 4-door model. I never though I’d have any passengers and today, I’ll have two after we pick up Michelle at the airport.

“Also,” I continued. “The Accent has nice trunk space. Even with the chairs, cooler and the towels, there’s plenty of room for luggage.”

Lindie just rubbed her hand up and down my leg acknowledging my comments. Then she added, “I like this car too. Four doors is nice for other reasons like shopping, as is a big trunk.

“Mikey, it sounds like you made a good deal buying this car,” Lindie said as we neared the park’s exit. “I think something like this would be great for me too.”

“No car?” I asked her.

“Nope. And it’s not even part of my long story either. Well, actually, I guess it is. Anyway, I had gotten a car with my last boyfriend and well, when we split a month ago, he took the car and disappeared.

“Actually, to tell the truth, the car was in his name and he made all of the payments. I just put gas in it when I used it. He had a motorcycle too, so I could use his car anytime I wanted.

“My move down here came quickly after we split and I haven’t gotten there yet ... getting car that is. So not only am I care-less, I’m car-less,” she said as she paused.

“Your mom offered me use of her car if she wasn’t planning to go out, so I do have occasional transportation, but I’ve got to do something real fast,” Lindie sand, wrapping up her story.

We pulled off the interstate and wound our way to the park entrance. I paid the modest park admission fee and drove on to the beach parking lot. It was only about one-third full.

I smiled at Lindie and said, “Don’t look too crowded.”

“Doesn’t,” she chided me and I shot right back at her, “No it don’t, does it?”

I turned to her with a huge grin on my face and let out a laugh. She slapped my thigh as retribution for teasing her and we shifted out of the car. After grabbing the contents of the trunk, we walked down to the beach.

Well, it wasn’t a lot of beach. There was some white beach sand there which made walking around and lying down more comfortable, but it wasn’t natural, if you get my drift.

Spider Lake is a weird place. It’s a nice sized lake right at a small geological rift. Mainly here in the Rock Creek area, most everything was on top of just that, rock. Right here at Spider Lake, the bed was shale.

At some point the shale had cracked and while one part, the beach area, tilted just a little, creating a nice shallow swimming area, gradually deepening to about to about a depth of five feet. About fifty feet out, the other part of the lake bead had cracked and sunk. Out there was an immediate drop off to about a thirty foot depth where swimmers and divers could enjoy deeper water.

Most mountain lakes are blessed with a muddy bottom and the water is brown, filled with decayed leaves and loam. The shale beach wading area was nice to walk on without the benefit of the mud.

Also, the lake was called Spider Lake because from the air, the lake looked like a spider with eight small streams running into the lake forming spider legs. Rock Creek was the outflow, twisting down past the town and eventually into a larger stream.

Another benefit of the streams that fed Spider Lake was plenty of water constantly flowing into the lake. That insured the lake water would not stagnate. It was estimated by the Conservation Department the water changed twice a week. Always fresh and always clear.

Perhaps the water was a little cool, but it was always fresh. In hot summer days, the little coolness of the lake was a huge plus.