Paddleboarding

    I was so upset I could not go on the paddleboarding excursion with the class this semester, so for a blog post I thought I would reflect on my paddleboarding experiences in the past. I have always loved being around water, ever since I was a baby. My childhood home had a pool in the back, my family would go to the beach once a summer, and our family friends lived in a lake house. Every Summer Olympics I would be obsessed with Michael Phelps and the professional divers to the point where I would swim laps in the pool for hours trying to perfect my breaststroke. If I forget how to swim one day, I will sooner drown than remain dry. 

    Whenever we read from an Edward Abbey exert, I always compare his love for the desert with my love for the lake (kind of ironic since they are drastically different terrains). When he was explaining how the national parks are becoming overcrowded and filled with unnecessary motor vehicles, it struck a chord within me. Growing up visiting family friends living on the lake every other weekend has allowed me to watch the lake evolve into more of a tourist attraction than a natural body of water. At seven years old I was able to swim in the center of the lake, away from the boat my family was in, without risk but at fifteen years old I had to wave my arms frantically to make sure the boats would see and go around me. At sixteen years old I learned to stay in the boat. We still loved going to the lake and spending quality time together under the Oklahoma sun, but we simply had to adapt how we did this as the lake began to change. 

    We no longer go to this lake anymore. The overcrowding was too much for my family friends, and they moved away.