today is a beautiful day!

As I was biking (no, I didn't do quite 20 miles, but I was out there!) I noticed the immense beauty that is today. it looks absolutely perfect for a summer kayak trip with a little picnic complete with a guitar jam session afterward. It reminded me of the numerous times I've strapped many kayaks in and on my SUV and driven to the lakes to have a fun filled day of kayaking with all my friends. That brought me back to an article Ed Cullen (Attic Salt column) wrote after observing my friends and I on a kayak excursion. We were so shocked when we saw this in the newspaper, and we knew right away it was about us. 

Here's a little part of the column titled "Lake Traffic a Sign of Summer".

"The other afternoon at Baton Rouge Beach, there was a summer sight-- girls on a boating outing. The girls, who were high school age, piled out of an SUV as though they'd just driven hundreds of miles to a favorite river instead of from a nearby neighborhood. The girls worked well together, suggesting they'd learned to work together on school projects. They quickly unloaded inflatable boats and a kayak. They enjoyed each other's company immensely as they worked through the choreography of youthful exuberance that one day might be applied to architecture, medicine or the law but for the moment was being lavished on getting rubber boats into University Lake. It was easy to imagine this scene being repeated on the banks of a white water river. What would the girls do once they launched their bouncy craft? Would they practice orchestrated rowing to make their boats move in a straight line before experimenting with turning? Would they strike out for the stretch of interstate that crosses City Park Lake to work on endurance? The girls paddled out a scarce 100 yards from the beach and began to drift until all the boats had come together. Then, the boaters resumed the animated conversation they'd interrupted to launch their boats. The young women looked fit. They didn't need the workout. Someone had gotten the idea of taking all available boats to BR beach as platforms for an afternoon of celebrating the end of school and being together-- young in a young summer"