I love motorboating because without it, I would be far too connected to the stresses of life. Reseting my life while on that little motor boat is a much needed journey to make it through my year smiling. I’ve been boating since I was a young girl. Every year we would go fishing as a family. Slowly my mother and sister decided that fully disconnecting wasn’t for them and it became just my father and I. My father and I weren’t sure how to continue our much needed reset until we found Bumping Lake.
Once a year, my father and I go to Bumping Lake in Washington State to camp and fish as a last-chance summer vacation. My father has a full time job and I am a full time student with a part-time job on top of my education. This causes a lack in time for one another during our busy year. Our trip to Bumping Lake every year gave us time to reconnect after what seemed like a year long absence.
At the lake, there is no contact with the outside world. It’s just my father, myself, and the nature around us with our motor boat to go across the lake. We always choose to go to the end of the lake so that we are camping by ourselves. Away from the campsites. The boat carries us across the crystal-clear water. On the far side of the lake, you forget that work, school, and stress exists. Each evening we would go out in our little motor boat to fish. A time to reconnect with each other and with nature.
While my dad starts fishing, I pull out my camera to take pictures of the area. I see things that I wouldn’t have noticed from the land. Like the mountain rocks that have little white specs that seem to move each day. From the boat, we realize that the white specs are mountain goats moving across the rocks. I see little tadpoles in the water, growing their hind legs, learning to breathe air instead of water. From the shore, these things are easily missed and easily disregarded.
Along with my father, we always bring a friend or other family member. Every year has been different. The first few years it was his hunting buddies that would join us down the lake. The next year it was my mother and my best friend, learning to appreciate nature and the lack of a modern toilet. This year was the best year yet since my boyfriend came, a man that had never truly experienced what it meant to be disconnected and reset by nature. The conversations every year bring my father and I closer together. The little motorboat gave my dad and my boyfriend a chance to connect. They would talk for hours while fishing, forgetting that we hadn’t had food since the morning time. The little motorboat gave us a chance to reset from our busy lives with work and school. The little motorboat gave us a tradition that will stay with my father and I even when I have children. The day that little motor boat brings my father, my mother, my husband, my children, and myself down the lake, is a day I cannot wait to disconnect for.
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