A 40 minute car ride every Friday,
Only cornfields to view on the way.
Once we turn on the gravel road,
I know we're almost there. 
The view now changes,
All you see is rows and rows of boats.
The air is cleaner here,
Without all the people around to pollute it.

It's not far from where we live,
But it's so much different
There's More dirt, less concrete
There’s more music, less traffic
There's more space, less clutter
There's more freedom, less rules

Waking up on the boat
with the sunrise shining through the windows
Is a feeling that is uncomparable to anything else
All the bright pretty colors consisting of
Calypso orange, rembrandt red, delft blue,
beautiful aquamarine blues fill the sky.

It's usually the smell of crispy bacon waking me up.
My mom up early making the family breakfast
Before the long day at the sandbar.
Only after a few minutes of being awake
There would be a plate in front of me
Filled with pancakes, bacon, and sausage.
With A big glass of cold orange juice,
to go right along with it.
The whole family eats their food as quick as they can
Were all anxious and more than ready to leave the dock,
And finally feel the sun on our skin.

Finally that time comes,
and my dad turns the boat on
We sit on the outside levels of the boat
Ready to finally feel that cool breeze
The ride to the sandbar is a short one
We arrive there quicker every time
At least that's how it feels
My dad slows down the boat
And lines up with the sandbar
He throws the big silver anchors off the boat
And i go to stick them in the sand,
It was less of a struggle every time,
Its early though the sand it still cold on my feet
Although the sun is shining as bright as it can.
Finally the boat is off and it's time for us to relax and enjoy our day

We put up our tent to create some shade for mom
We pull all of our chairs off the boat
We set up for the day
We are ready to not stress for once

I'm usually the first one in the water
You can't see underwater there...
The river is dirty but i grew up here,
I grew up in the water,
Its where i feel like i'm myself again.
You don't dare open your mouth under water
But i'm used to all this i knew exactly what to do
Each and every time.
We all spent our time doing what we enjoy best
Waiting till it's time to grill up some lunch.

The grill on the boat used to be a dark blue
But with all the rain and river water it's begun to lose color
And cause a little rust,
But that won't stop my dad from grilling
He’ll make burgers bigger than we usually eat
And so many hotdogs we could feed the whole sandbar!
Once hes done we go inside and make our plates
The counter lined with pickles, tomatoes, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise
It had anything we could've imagined.
I'm not sure what it was but everything tasted better there!

We would spend the rest of daylight
Swimming, snacking, resting, tanning, reading
Anything our minds told us to do.
It would get to the point my mom is ready to make it back to the dock
And i'd beg her, “just 20 more minutes please”
But after that 20 minutes i'm more than ready to go to the dock also
The sun shining down all day drained me of my energy
And all the swimming wasn't much of a help either.

Once we got back we'd all take turns showering
This shower was small and had very little light,
But after you have all that dirt and sand on you
The shower feels more amazing than any shower you've taken.
Once were hungry again my dad would fire up the grill again
This time he's cooking steak while my mom was inside
Getting baked potatoes and amazing green beans ready
We ate really luxury for being on a river,
But that was nothing to complain about.

After we've eaten and everything is cleaned up
My parents would go into there room but
You'd find me sitting on the couch watching t.v. 
Until i couldn't keep my eyes open any more,
But every night after a day at the river,
I couldn't sleep better.
Everything there is relaxing…
There is no stress…
Its not tolerated there…

Happiness finds it place at the river
In the sun
On the boat
Throughout the water
The river is my second home,
and will forever be my favorite home.