Beach Houses
One of the earliest and most favored memories I have as a child were the days our clan spent at Lake Michigan. We had a beach house that we rented and spent all of August at the water. Let's not get carried away with casually renting a lake house. It was the tiniest log cabin situation, located in half forest/half dunes. The living space was connected to a patio that looked out over the lake. One large window and a screen door that never closed, connected the outside world with the inside. Kitchen was exactly in the middle of the house. Barely no space to hold more than two people, but the liveliest place after dusk fell. Let's not forget the side room to the right of the house. Connected again with a screen door it was basically a shed full of summer fun. Beach toys, tubs, surf boards came into that tiny side space at night and everything from the lake came along with it. Bunk beds and sand everywhere. It was perfect. These times were perhaps the only steady thing that happened in our young lives.
Every morning was the same. Wake up, eat, run the hundreds wooden steps down to the waves and do all the things before dusk fell or you got hungry. Climbing all the whose steps back up the the cabin was the absolute worst. After the first day of unplanning, it became very important to plan out food, water, toys, anything before heading down to the waves in the morning. You didn't want to run out of anything or it would be an unwanted workout. Of course if you were the chosen one to run them up to the house there was always a list of things requested to be brought back down.