Road Trip September 2017

Boat on Stonehouse Lake.

Last blog post I was blogging about two small state parks the my husband and I went to while we were out and about at the cabin earlier this month.  I did not have room to post pictures on the last post, so I wanted to add them here.

We first stopped at Stonehouse Lake State Park.  It is a small, but nice park.   The park has a 41 acre (169,521 square meters) lake.  It has a children's play area, bathrooms, grills, picnic tables, benches, parking area and a boat ramp.  This lake is part of the reservoir system.  You are allowed to use boats with electric motors or use oars, but gas powered motors are prohibited.

Photo taken on top of the levee.  Water gauge is in the distance.

Stonehouse Lake

You can fish here, but you need a license from the state in order to fish.  It seems from something I was reading on the internet that you have to have a special permit to fish at night.  They have Large Mouth Bass and Sunfish here.  At one time, they stocked catfish, but are no longer stocking them.  There were some rules posted regarding the size fish you were allowed to take.  My husband and I found the rules a little confusing.  Could you only take fish smaller than a certain size?  If you caught one larger than the restricted size were you supposed to throw it back or could you keep it?  I guess if I were planning on fishing I would explore the rules a little further.

Water fowl at Thrashers Lake Park

As I blogged last time, each park had a large levee built between the lake and the valley below.  On the levee there was a 12 foot high (3.65 meters) water gauge.  This gauge was positioned quite high up on the levee.  There was a sign next to it asking people not to touch the gauge because it the water reached that height that it was time to sound an emergency.  I would hate to think the lake quickly filling to that height or that such a large volume of water could suddenly tumble into the valley below.   It is hard to see in the photo, but the water level gauge is the pole that appears to be in front of the vehicles in the parking lot below.

Valley below the levee.

Thrashers Lake State Park was very much the same, but the lake was a little smaller at 36 acres (145,687 square meters).   Gasoline boats are not permitted on this lake either.  At this lake we walked out onto the boat ramp and were greeted by a duck that was hopeful that we were bringing snacks for it.  This lone duck was different from the other water fowl that were gathered at the edge of the lake.  They were fairly far from us so it was hard to tell whether they were ducks or geese.  I think that they might have been migratory birds.

At this lake there was a sign saying that the county allowed some bateaux to be moored here.  The sign advised you to stay away from the craft.  A bateau (plural bateaux) (sometimes spelled with a double t)is a flat bottomed, shallow draft boat that is pushed with long poles.  Depending upon the style, it may also has a steering rudder at the stern.  They were used extensively for river travel during the colonial period (roughly, 1607 - 1776).  Some bateaux were smaller and used for travel, but others were larger and used to move goods such as furs or tobacco. 

Submerged bateaux.

The bateaux stored at the lake were of the smaller variety.  At the moment, they were pretty much submerged by rainwater.  It was easy to think that they might have been just abandoned as wrecked vessels, by I expect that with a little bailing out that they would once again be ready for action.

Thrashers Lake

Virginia has its own special type of bateau.  It was invented by Anthony Rucker (the elder) in 1775.  The first mention of its use was in an account book of Thomas Jefferson.  He was present for the first launching of the craft.  (Source:  Wikipedia).  Although bateau had been used for quite some time, this design was significantly different from the others and eventually the heirs of Anthony Rucker received a patent for the design.

There is an annual event in Virginia called the James River Batteaux festival.  It starts in Lynchburg and ends in Powhatan, a distance of 120 river miles.  I expect these craft moored at the park were used at that festival.  For the festival, some people will dress in colonial style dress or a river driver's outfit which is knee length pants, a loose white shirt, and a straw hat.  You can find pictures of the festival by going to Google images and entering James River Batteau Festival.

Anyway, that is my blog post for this week.  I will be back to blogging about my latest craft project in the next blog post.