It’s a common topic on this blog that I love water in all its forms. What I haven’t mentioned is that when I’m asked to name a favorite anything, I usually can’t. I love reading too much to have one favorite book. I’ve enjoyed too many great movies to pick just one. Even my favorite color depends on context.

So when the topic for this week’s WPC was “favorite place” it didn’t surprise me that there was no way I could name a single, absolute favorite place. It also didn’t surprise me that most of my many favorite places have a unifying theme of being near water.

The summer camp I attended when I was a child, that will always hold a special place in my heart, was on a V of land at the confluence of two rivers. All of my favorite campsites have been on the banks of creeks and rivers like Chiwaukum, Warm Springs, and Beckler, the shores of mountain lakes like Wenatchee and Takhlakh, or wild Pacific Ocean beaches at Kalaloch and Long Beach on Vancouver Island.

One of my all time favorite city parks is Riverfront Park in Spokane. As the name implies, it’s right on the river, and part of the park is an island in the middle of the river. On one side the river is calm and slow flowing, and on the other it cascades down over ancient volcanic rock. One of my favorite motels to stay at was the old Moonstone Beach Motel, which used to be right on the ocean beach in Moclips. (The old motel was torn down and there are now extensive dunes in front of the beach.)

I’m not a very adventurous person in general, but I did once go on an extended canoe trip with a large group of fellow camp counselors at the end of summer after camp closed. We spent seven days paddling around Harrison Lake in British Columbia and six nights wilderness camping on lake beaches. The long days spent on the water and nights spent around campfires with waves quietly lapping at the shore were indescribably wonderful.

The photo for this post doesn’t portray the grandeur of Kalaloch or Harrison, but it does represent the many pleasurable hours my best friend and I spent on a little travel court cabin deck overlooking the Wenatchee River where we talked, read books, and watched the river flow peacefully by.

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