One of the best things about the South* is that it warms up real quick down there. When we lived in Georgia, we were lucky to have a good friend with a boat and by late April we were out playing on the water. Now, I’m a lake snob. I grew up where the lakes are clear, crisp and inviting and I hold these expectations for all bodies of water. Its probably unfair, but I can’t help it. I have to admit, my over-imaginative assumption was that the lakes down there would be brown and full of things slithering and creeping that would happily eat me for lunch. No thanks.
But, having grown up within a stone’s throw of Lake Michigan, I also crave play time near and on the water. So I was willing to investigate and was happy to find that I was wrong about lakes in the South. I don’t know about all of them, but I lived on Lake Lanier in north Georgia for a few months. It was really pretty. And we spent a few fun weekends out on Lake Martin in Alabama that spring. It ticks all boxes for lake criteria. It was clean, and inviting, with beautiful shoreline, islands, lake homes and party coves. Check, check, check and check. Its also unexpectedly big. Like, really big. 31 miles long, with 750 miles of shoreline. The lake is actually a reservoir, completed in the 1920s and was, at the time the largest man-made body of water in the world. My snobbish, Great Lakes loving self was impressed, humbled, and no less than thrilled to be out playing on the water so early in the Spring. If you live near a southern body of water, put on a bathing suit and go run down a nearby dock for us up here where such an activity would still give us hypothermia.
My first time up on the wakeboard and husband’s first time trying wakesurf. I’m grateful for friends who enable me to go new places and try new things.
Living the lake life. Is there anything better than a day on the water?
We camped lakeside on the pine straw and made ourselves at home at the local dive. I’m on a boat, y’all.
*other best things about the South include shrimp & grits, magnolia trees and the word “y’all”
