TSITS: The Lake House

Ahh, water-based vacation properties. Is anything more upper middle class (aside from your hybrid SUV, grass fed burgers and closet full of technical outerwear)? While one could argue that both salty and non-salty forms of water-based vacation properties are the shit, it is the lake house that is truly the shit.

Beaches are great, I mean who doesn't love the sound of waves? But there is something about the lake and lake house that is seriously the shit. Whether its the calm that the water provides, the abundance of docks for sitting, drinking, pretending to fish and paddling (your choice on what order to put those into) or the views of the lake and surrounding mountains, the lake house is seriously the shit.

I mean just look at that photo. Seriously look at it. When I look at that photo, The Band's "The Night They Drove Ole Dixie Down" comes into my mind. Why? I don't know, but I bet that song would sound awesome being played over some speakers at that lake house. Just look at that porch, that awesome furniture, which was undoubedly collected from the forest and built by someone with "Tangible Skills", that support beam created with those huge field stones, the log cabin style architecture, the fact that the place probably smells old and slightly musty and, God willing, the only available shower is located outside. TSITS! Let's do some relaxing.

Still not convinced? Allow me to set the stage for you. You are in the mountains, sitting on a porch not unlike the one pictured above, the sun is out, the grill is hot and the lake is luke. You have a bunch of beers a bunch of food and a bunch of compatriots. You sit down in a chair made from fallen branches (I mean seriously), sip your beer and take a look across the lake towards the mountains. Should I go for a hike? Should I go for a swim? Should I paddle across the lake for no real reason? Should I continue to sit here and fall asleep? Or not fall asleep? Am I seriously asking these questions? At any rate, I dare you not to relax. See, impossible.

So, the others can have their Hamptons, their Miami, their Vineyard, their Jersey Shore, their Redneck Riviera, their SoCal, their Caribbean - just leave me with a nice rustic lake house, a dock, a grill, a refrigerator full of beers, some friends, clear nights and some goddamn silence. Join me, won't you? Now that shit is the shit.