Today while I admired the pretty lakes I drive past on my way to/from work I remembered Patriot Lake in Memphis. This is part of Shelby Farms, a large urban park between Memphis and Cordova. We have a lot of family memories of that place, because we spent a lot of time there.

There's a paved path that goes around the lake, and R and I used to walk around it with F, or following her on her roller skates or her bicycle. After she had gone off to college I could still go there (and did by myself a few times just to get some alone time) and envision her little self skating or biking or hopping up that path.

For a while there was a boat rental there, and F and I would rent a canoe and paddle around.

And she loved to go down to the water's edge and look for tiny mussels and other creatures. She spent a lot of time doing that, with me sitting on a bench catching a breeze.

Sometime when we were in the midst of running errands, if the day was pretty we would drop everything and go to Patriot Lake. For a few years I kept a picnic blanket and a kite in the trunk of the car for just this purpose. There's a kite-flying hill that always has convection breezes from the lake.

Here are some pix from 2004.