Looking For Life in all the Right Places

I went hiking yesterday, looking for life wherever I might find it,

and ended up on the shores of a lake.

This lake is actually a man-made lake with a drowned settlement at the bottom. Ironically, the once living town of Cedar Springs had plenty of water with abundant rain, spring runoffs, and a year-round stream, so the residents (first ranchers, then homesteaders, and finally townspeople) never expected to have water problems. But when the state needed reservoirs to store water for its ever-growing population, this shallow canyon seemed a natural location. And so the town with plenty of water was killed by even more water.

I didn’t think of that poor drowned town when I was hiking, of course. I just enjoyed the walk through the woods to the shores of the lake. It was a gorgeous day, and even the difficult footing, rivulets to cross on slippery rocks, and fallen tree trunks to clamber over didn’t dampen my pleasure at the stunning scenery.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: Cedar Springs, drowned town, hiking, man-made lake