Everyone has a certain place in their life that is a getaway from their real life. It could be big or small. For some people, their getaway is simply going to the nail salon or the hair salon and doing something for themselves. For me, the Lake of the Ozarks is my getaway. Just thinking about it makes me excited. Especially since lake season is coming up.

I have been going to the lake for about 6 years now. I still remember the first time I ever went to the lake. It was with my friend Jessa and she had a condo down there. Jessa’s family eventually sold their condo and my parents happened to want a place at the lake soon after that. We got a camper which stays at one of the restaurants on the lake, Frankie and Louie's. I went down to the lake almost every weekend in the summer with my family. My freshman year, I met one of my best friends, Livia, who also happened to have a house at the lake. This made me realize that the lake was a lot of people's getaway.

Ever since I first went down to the lake with Livia and some of my other friends, we began going down to her house almost every weekend and every summer of high school. The drive down to the lake never gets old. I have almost memorized how to get there because me and my friends have gone so much. There is a road called Y road on the way to Livia’s lake house which is the back road that we go on right after getting off of the highway. It has been a tradition that once we get off of the highway and onto Y road, we roll all of the windows down and blast the summer songs playlist. Once we get to the lake house we go into the rooms and change into our swimsuits. We then go out to the dock to decide what we will do next. Go on the boat, go on the jet skis, tan, or tube.

I love to ride on the jet skis. The freeing feeling of driving the jetski right before sunset as fast as you can never gets old. There happens to be a name that me and my friends came up with for this feeling. It is called a serotonin ride. To have the perfect serotonin ride, me and my friends go out about an hour before it gets dark to Mermaid Cove. This cove goes back very far which makes it the perfect serotonin cove. Since it is close to getting dark outside, the water is usually very calm in the cove. As soon as we get to the cove me and my friends push the gas lever all the way down and take off deeper into the cove.

Tubing is another one of my favorite lake activities. Something about almost getting whiplash and a concussion is fun to me. 2 summers ago was one of the worst tubing summers for me. I was on accutane which meant my skin was sensitive to anything. My hands would get torn up from holding onto the tubes and it made tubing not enjoyable for me anymore. I tried everything that summer to be able to go on the tube without my hands ripping. I even tried to wear gloves one time. Nothing worked. I am a very competitive person so when I kept falling off of the tube 2 summers ago, I came back last summer even more motivated than ever to stay on the tube the longest. I happened to come up with a way to hold on to the tube that helped me stay on the longest out of my friends. It got to the point where I would only fall off if the whole tube flipped over. Not to brag or anything but I was the best tuber last summer and I’m expecting to keep that title for this summer.

To end the perfect lake day, Livia’s mom always makes us a big dinner and then we go out for ice cream and hangout on the dock. A lot of times her mom will set up the speaker with microphones and we will all take turns doing karaoke. Other times we will play games on the dock. The best part about it all is that I can go to sleep and wake up knowing that I will either be at the lake the next day or the next weekend and I will get to make even more fun memories.