Saturday, February 1, 2020

Sepia Saturday: Wherever You Tie Your Boat


Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt features a boat tied up along a canal wall. I am not a “boat person” per se because, unlike Goose and Maverick, I do not have a need for speed. However, my first ride on a gentle and slow-moving pontoon boat changed my life. In 2011 we bought a vacation home at Smith Mountain Lake in the southwestern part of Virginia. A pontoon came with it!
Wendy and Jollette 2016 SML https://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Sister and Moi on the pontoon 2016
When the lake opened in 1969, its main purpose was to generate electricity and to serve as a recreational facility for weekenders. For $1000 a family could buy a lot where they could set up a tent or bring a camper. Folks fished from the bank or from a canoe or john boat, maybe even from a small run-about.

Plans for neighborhoods and condo communities were years away. While today there are many million-dollar homes, there are just as many small cabins, A-frames, rag-tag mobile homes and trailer parks.
SML https://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Tanglewood Trailer Park
Probably years of immersion in family history and studying old photos has drawn me to the original homes and docks of Smith Mountain Lake. I took photos of some of them to use as artwork in a guest room.

No longer can anyone build a home out over the water. Such homes are grandfathered, but if they fall in, that’s IT - bye bye.

Old properties SML https://jollettetc.blogspot.com

Nobody builds boat garages anymore. I certainly wouldn’t want to. They look like havens for snakes and spiders.

Old properties SML https://jollettetc.blogspot.com

Old properties SML https://jollettetc.blogspot.com

Homeowners with deep water and deep pockets enjoy party docks like these.
 
From Charity Home Tour 2019
From Charity Home Tour 2019
No, that is not ours. Ours is modest.
SML 2012 https://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Our girls and their guys 2013
Our dock in the background
See who is docked at Sepia Saturday.

Wendy
© 2020, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

10 comments:

  1. How lovely, enjoy your time there.

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  2. It looks like a lovely area for a vacation home!

    betty

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  3. My first ride on a pontoon (that I recall) was several years ago on a big lake formed by a dam across a river that used to misbehave with heavy rains. The ride we took included looking at the old hotel where the movie "Dirty Dancing" was filmed. They were talking about a remake, but I haven't checked it out. Lake Lure, North Carolina. I enjoyed seeing your collection of lake houses!

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  4. Pontoon boats are so much fun. A friend of mine has one -- so relaxing. My family had a lot on a lake in Pennsylvania when I was growing up, and it was much as you described. Next door was a large home that could be lived in year-around. On our lot we had a lean-to my dad built and a (our one luxury) an indoor toilet that you flushed with a pail of lake water! But for us kids it was great -- swimming, boating, water-skiing, what more could you want?

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  5. We tried having a speed boat but I was not a fan. A pontoon boat would have been my choice.

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  6. The picture of the older home and water garage seem a bit dangerous. It'd be a nice place to visit but I'm not so sure about living over the water.

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  7. Pontoon boats are fun and are very versatile. If your engine's big enough, you can pull skiers with one. Otherwise they're great for meandering around a waterway while you sip wine and whatever else! We belonged to a sailing club when we lived in Pine Mountain Lake, but some of the members (who could afford to own two boats!) got hooked on pontoon boats as well.

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  8. Sweet!!! A lake house and a pontoon for sipping and sitting and leisure time. Great pictures of past and present lake houses. I miss having a lake place even if ours was an old camper with an add on porch with a rock wall that kept us from falling into the lake. I'm back to blog land...on a limited schedule...as explained in my post today.

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  9. I can see the attraction. Freshwater lakes are so much smoother than thanked lumpy saltwater ocean waves. And taste better too. Just not so good for floating.

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  10. You are making me crave boating season! I love looking at the older style docks and homes on the lake.

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