The Snake River, backed by the mighty Teton Mountains.
My Top 10 Favorite
Bodies of Water
It covers three-quarters of our earth, so you can't help but see it daily. I've been fortunate enough to see many of the major bodies of water visible in the United States.
Here are my favorites.
1. The Pacific Ocean: It's power is evident just from splashing in its waves along the California coast, which I've done several times.
Just awesome.
2. The Snake River: I've rafted on its rapids in the Teton Mountains - my favorite mountain range, swam in it in Idaho Falls and viewed in on various car rides in the area. Breathtaking.
3. Lake Ripley: A little lake near Cambridge, Wis. It was the clearest lake I remember swimming in as a kid. It had a pier you could swim out to and jump off of. Great memories.
4. The Atlantic Ocean: I've swam in it in Florida, South Carolina and Virginia. Not nearly as exciting as the Pacific (smaller waves), it's nonetheless quite impressive.
5. The Mississippi River: For the past 25 years, I've crossed it hundreds of times as a resident of Dubuque. It's Mighty, to be sure, and the bluffs in many places are fantastic.
6. Lake Kegonsa: A lake near my hometown of Stoughton, we swam here much more often than Lake Ripley. But it often had seaweed, which took some of the fun out of it.
7. Lake Michigan: It's obviously more impressive than others higher on this list, but I haven't spent much time in it. It's an awesome sight flying over it when taking off from O'Hare Airport.
8. The Stoughton Swimming Pool: I spent most of my young summers at this, basically, mud hole (it was not cement). But it was sandy in the shallow area, had some great slides and diving board.
9. The Current River: Located in southern Missouri, I spent one day visiting it with a girl I knew named Andrea. It was a beautiful, slow-moving and clear river.
10. The Yahara River: Runs through Stoughton, I really didn't do much on it, but it was my childhood river where ducks came and went.
Any list that ends, "...but it was my childhood river where ducks came and went." can't be all bad. Personally, I'd add in all the little streams of melt water in the spring. Big enough to float a tiny boat, to stomp a buckle boot into, or to run a bike through and it qualifies as a body of water in kid terms.
ReplyDeleteBeing the brat I was as a kid, I once threw a rock toward the ducks waddling near the Yahara to make them run and I accidentally hit one :-( Felt very bad about that.
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected. The list was good. The list maker was bad. I wonder if anyone was ever haunted by a specter in the form of a duck?
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