A Day at the Lake

This past Saturday we took a day-trip to one of the local lakes, where our friend's father owns a home. We got up early in the morning, packed the car with a cooler, some swim suits, some doggie things and Miss Luna Petunia herself and headed southbound for a day trip.

When we pulled up to the small summer cottage, it made me ridiculously, awfully, knot in the belly homesick. Driving through the community was like driving through where I grew up and the house itself was eerily similar to the converted summer home I grew up in. Right down to the knotty pine paneling and cabinets in the kitchen. It also had that amazing effect that bodies of water tend to have on me; I could feel the stress just blowing away on the cool breezes, my body relaxed noticeably and I couldn't stop grinning. It had the same effect on Joe, who grew up in a very similar community on the edge of a lake.

When we first went down to the water, my friend and I went out onto the dock while Luna and Joe tried the water. Now, Luna is not a water loving dog. When you give her a bath, you may as well be trying to kill her and the kiddie pool we got for her is a big water dish - not something to play in. But I looked up and there she was, paddling as hard as her tiny legs would allow out to us on the dock! Future attempts to re-create her initial swim were hilarious failures. At one point she swam back to shore and sprinted around the yard in circles, refusing to get near any of us tricky people. Until she got tired, then she wanted whichever lap was closest.

Once we tuckered out the pup, we took a ride on the pontoon boat and lucky her, she was invited along. It turns out, I'm married to Panama Jack and my dog is a born sea-fairer! As we puttered about the lake, doing a good job emptying the cooler, my friend's father told us about some of the lake's history. It's man made and at the bottom there are still the remnants of houses and roadways from the town they flooded out long, long ago. An island in the center of the lake is called bomb island, as it was a place where they did practice runs during World War II. Nowadays though, it's the largest roosting place for the Purple Martin in all of North America. Apparently, at night you can watch several thousand birds come in to roost. We didn't get to see that this time, but hopefully one day we will and I'll be armed with my camera instead of my phone to get some pictures.

Not a square photo, lol.

To round out the day of beautiful sights and sounds, we were able to see both an eagle and an osprey hunting in the shallows while we sat on the porch eating dinner. As we drove home that night, with the scents of sunscreen and bug spray in the air, the sandy grit of spray in my hair and the first crackling feeling of sunburn on the edges of my face, I felt better than I have in months.

I'm not sure when, but one day, we'll move back to the edge of the water.