Deep Creek Lake, 2012

1. My family has owned a house at Deep Creek Lake since the late 1960's, it's always one of my favorite summer vacation spots.

2. We're not actually supposed to have a hammock, according to the DNR, because it's hung between trees and not from a frame. It's been there for decades though, so no one is exactly rushing to take it down now. When my cousins and I were little, it was always a fight to see who would get to lay on it, and then all of the other kids would push it as high as it could go. Now I'm pretty content with just using it to read or listen to music.

3. Our house is on a road that circles back on itself, so we always take walks "around the loop".

4. My cousin and I found this on one of the walks. The only thing I could think of was maybe it was part of a pinata or something (or that it's out to scare away all of the bears that have been around this summer!).

5. The sun sets over the lake, right across from our house. I try to get a picture every year.

6. This used to be a golf course, I think. It's down the road from my house, and then down another road, then through a little bit of woods. Now it's all tall grass, trees, and wildflowers. I have no idea who cuts the paths through it, but I'm glad that they do.

7. This is back in the old golf course, too. You can always hear all kinds of frogs and stuff around here, and sometimes you can see big birds like herons. I found this massive crayfish once, too.

8. Reading on the dock is one of my favorite things to do.

9. Every Saturday, there's a sailboat race out on the lake. It's cool to watch for a while, but it actually gets kind of annoying after a while when you want to go out in a speed boat. We tried to go tubing on Saturday but we couldn't keep the tube afloat and we kept getting in around sailboats so we ended up just going on a long boat ride to the dam and back instead.

10. Canada geese basically took over the lake by the end of the week.