Loving La Vida Lago

The water laps at the shore, a breeze causes the tendrils of the willow tree to gently sweep the rocky beach, a noisy group of geese fly overhead, lazily making their way into a great V. This is lake country, the Okanagan of BC and I am here for a week in the last gasp of summer. It's mid -September so the kids are back in school and the lake is largely quiet. Only the occasional boat goes by and I have yet to see one pulling a tube or a wake boarder. Summer fun is over in lake country. The sun is still warm mid-day but the nights and mornings are cool.
Sitting here on this dock with the sun in my face, the smell of the lake in the air, the stickiness of sunscreen on my skin, I could be any age, 7, 17 or 47.  For all that things have changed in the last fifty years some things are still so much the same. The lake is the lake is the lake. Especially now at this time of year when the Jet Skis and Sea Doos are silent.

Lots of tubing with our kids.

Coming here as a kid we played on canvas air mattresses that had to be dried in time to sleep on that night, and truck inner tubes inflated at the local gas station.  We slurped up overripe peaches and buried the pits in the sand, cooked wieners over campfires and went to bed sunburnt. It was heaven.  The sun was hot, the lake was cold, the skies brilliant blue. Some of my very best memories revolve around time spent at the lakes of the Okanagan.  We brought our kids to these lakes as well, dragging along boats and SeaDoos and staying in homes not campsites but the lake is the lake is the lake. We ate peaches, roasted wieners and tried not let the kids get so sunburnt. I hope their memories of those times are as savoured by them as mine are are by me.

Everyone enjoys the lake their way!

Without children at home to plan summer vacations around we don't get to the lake so often. For a few years now we've spent some time on the Sunshine Coast enjoying the ocean and hiking in the forest. Occasionally we take the plunge into the chilly ocean waters when the air gets hot enough. It's not the same as the lake though and I had missed it, so this year we chose Okanagan Lake for a week.
Trying to find a waterfront place at the last minute in the Okanagan is almost impossible so we booked for September when things open up. The weather is a bit more of a gamble but we got lucky and had sunshine for six out of seven days. The sun wasn't as hot, the water felt colder and there were lamb chops on the BBQ not wieners but, you know.....it's still the lake. We sat on the dock with friends, soaked up the sun and listened to the lap of the water.  My husband, Ted showed off his prowess on the diving board while others opted for a paddle in the canoe. Two of our group even indulged in a late night dare of a naked jump off the dock. I wasn't one of them and I'm not telling who it was! The point is, we had fun, even though we are older and not tipping each other out of inner tubes into the lake, it was fun. There is something about the water, the dock,  the swaying willows that brings out the kid in us. So as I sat there alone on the dock that first day, the sun on my face, the year's fell away. I didn't worry about how I  look in a bathing suit or if I was getting too much sun, I just breathed in the lake smell, listened to the sound of the water and wished someone would bring me a tomato and mayo sandwich to make the day complete. Sometimes life can be that simple.