Outdoor Wednesday

Today I am linking up with  Outdoor  Wednesday, hosted by a   Southern Daydreamer.
Outdoor Wednesday photos  can be something outside of your home such as your porch, deck, patio, garden or lawn. Your photo can be outdoor shots of the beach, forest or mountains. (We don’t want to exclude anyone who might not have a yard). Or, you could simply post pictures of a favorite plant or flower. Only rule is it has to be outside!


When I was growing up, my parents were huge on picnics and hanging out by lakes, rivers, lagoons on summer days off.
These were the days of no sunscreen, but rather,  baby oil tinted with iodine and also cocoa butter.   Suntan lotion, NOT sunscreen.  
Ahhhhh, those were the days. 
Not really, of course, as now everyone is paying the price, but let's  just forget that for a moment.   Cocoa Butter smelled SO GOOD! 
One summer, my parents had a contest between the two of them, to see who could get the darkest tan.  I can remember my mom taking the ironing onto the back patio and ironing in her bathing suit.
It was the 60's.   (as if that explains it all)

My dad worked shift work, so in the afternoons,  we would load up the station wagon with towels, blankets, sand buckets, snacks and.....cocoa butter and head down to the  Lagoon.
We lived on the Columbia River and in Columbia Park, there was an  inlet of water called  "the Lagoon".   I have to laugh at that name, it wasn't distinguised from any other lagoon.  There was a beach  (all sand) and picnic tables above the beach, a snack bar where we would buy frozen Milkshake candy bars on a stick.  Darn those were good!

I have very fond memories of summer afternoons at the Lagoon.   We swam the afternoon away and lay in the hot sun getting our tans. 
Even when I was in high school, we would go to the Lagoon to hang out. To look at the lifeguard sitting in his chair in the middle of the water, to show off our new swimsuits, to flirt with the boys, try to swim out to the dock in the middle.

I moved away from home over 30 years ago--and I knew that  the Lagoon had changed, but last year when I finally had the leisure  (when I was visiting)  to spend some time at Columbia park, I was really shocked to find that the Lagoon, had been changed to a fishing hole.  Everything was different!
It's very  pretty, but it made me sad.   I know there are reasons for the change--I don't know what they are--but it still makes me sad.   The Lagoon of my youth is now a fishing hole.

There is a nice walking path around it tho...

The old Snack Bar, where we bought the frozen Milkshake candy bars.   They still have restrooms there and you can see a little train in the back there---it drives children around the  "Playground of  Dreams", which I don't have pictures of, but it also wasn't there when I was a kid.   (to be honest, even tho I'm sad to see the Lagoon as I knew it, gone,  the Playground of Dreams is  so, so amazing!   Just goes to show, even tho change is difficult, it's sometimes good.

All that grass used to be a sandy beach.  All of it.