This past summer I experienced many new things for the first time, one of which was paddle boarding. I’ve never paddle boarded before, but when I went to the lake, I used to see people paddle board, and it looked like tons of fun. I knew right away that I had to put paddle boarding on my bucket list for that summer.

One summer weekday, my parents decided to wake me up really early, like sunrise early. I was so irritated and didn’t want to wake up since it was summer, and I wanted to sleep in everyday. I finally woke up in the crankiest mood.

“Melina! Get ready, we’re going to our friend’s house and to the lake. We’re leaving in 10!” my dad yelled from the kitchen.

I thought to myself, only 10 minutes to get ready? I’m a girl, and what girl I know takes 10 minutes to get ready? No one! I decided to leave my hair out of the getting ready routine. I put on my gray, old baggy sweatpants that I found in my pile of clothes scattered throughout my room and my ugly, green sweater that had the letters fading away. I quickly put my hair in one of those messy buns that takes 5 seconds to do. I packed my favorite pair of floral swim trunks, a tank top, and also my favorite towel that has a dolphin on it. Both my mother and sister were already ready. They had on a simple colored t-shirt and dark faded blue jeans on. My sister had long, beautiful hair like mine, but it was a lighter color. Her hair was almost up to her butt. My mother had her dark, shiny long hair. She had it up in a cute pony tail. Both my brothers and dad had typical boy clothes on. A simple shirt with light blue jeans and a hat.

“Hey dad! What lake are we going to?” I asked.
“Lake Selmac.”
“Is that even in Oregon?” I asked, since I’ve never seen or heard of it before.
“Yes. It’s on the other side of Grants Pass. It’s about an hour or so away.”
I thought to myself, this is going to be a long car ride.
I had a few pieces of toast and eggs that morning. We were on our way, and about half way there I started getting a bit nauseous. I was hoping what I had for breakfast that morning wouldn’t end up in the car. We got to Selma safely and without the car smelling like rotten toast and eggs. We turned left on a long, winding road, which lead us to my parents’ friend’s house.
“Look there’s Lake Selmac!” my dad told us while we were driving by.

I’d never been to Selma, so I was expecting something totally different than what I saw. The sun was out, so its light was shining down on our car like a flashlight. It was a small town. I thought we were in the middle of a forest since there were huge trees all around. I thought Big Foot could pop out any second. We arrived at my parents’ friend’s house a few minutes after passing the lake. They lived quite near the lake. They also lived on this big farm with lots of dogs. We visited for a few hours. My parents and their friends did what people normally do when they go visit: talk and more talk. I thought this was going to be a short in and out visit, but it turned out to be more like a five hour visit. Five hours of my life gone to waste. I’d thought it’d never end.

“Dad! Can we please go now?” Finally, I said what every one of my siblings was dying to say as we sat with boredom on their couch for the past five hours.

We left a few minutes later. We were on our way to the lake. We passed by the lake to find a good parking spot. As we were passing by, I saw that they had all types of boats people can rent. They had the paddle boards I’ve wanted to use that whole summer.
“Mom! Dad! Look! They have paddle boards! Can I please rent one?” I asked.

“Yes. Right after we have lunch,” my dad said.

We found a good parking spot in the shade right by the lake. We found a table down by the lake to have lunch. I helped my parents unload the food from the back of the car. While my parents were getting the food ready, I changed into my swim trunks and tank top in the car, hoping no one would notice me. I filled my tire tube and air mattress with air so I could go into the lake and wait till the food was ready. I went down by the water and put my foot in to feel the temperature of the water. It was really warm and sandy.
“Come on up guys! The food’s ready!” my mom yelled.

All my sibling and I raced back to the table.

“Last one is a rotten egg!” my sister said, looking like she was the rotten egg.

I had a piece of chicken and some corn for lunch. I was kind of rushing things because I wanted to go on the paddle boards already. We all ate and packed everything back up into the car. We were on our way across the street to go rent a paddle board!

We walked into this little store across the street that looked like a cabin. It had a small picnic area outside and a poodle as a guard dog. There was this guy at the cashier. He looked to be in his late teens or 20’s. He wasn’t a bit attractive. He had his hair slicked back into whatever guys call it. Sort of like a Mohawk. He was wearing just a plain old tee. He had a really squeaky voice. I thought he hadn’t hit puberty yet.
“How may I help you?” he asked as we walked in.
“How much to rent a paddle board?” my dad asked.
“Twenty dollars for the first hour and ten dollars each hour after,” he replied.

I wanted as much time as possible since they looked like so much fun to go on. My family and I finally suggested that two hours would be plenty of time. The guy had said only four people on a paddle board. There are six in our family. So we had to rent two boards. We decided that both my parents and my little brother would be on one paddle board, and my sister, older brother, and I on another. My dad paid the guy $40. The cashier said to pay the extra $10 once we were done. The guy working there had all of us put on life jackets. I thought to myself, I don’t need no life jacket. I’m no baby. I know how to swim just fine. I still had to put it on, though. He gave us two separate keys for each paddle board. We were all set to go. I quickly rushed out the door like I was in some type of hurry. With the key in my hand, I ran as fast I could to get to the dock and unlock the lock on the chain that had the paddle board chained up on the dock. I was already out of breath and still so excited, so my heart was beating too fast.

My brother and sister quickly jumped onto the paddle board and we were off. My brother and I were in the front, paddling, and my sister was sitting in the back. My parents were barely unlocking the paddle board. We’d thought we’d go explore the whole lake. We were about right in the middle of the lake when we got tired of paddling. We thought of something fun to do. We decided that we’d jump off the paddle board into the middle of the lake, so that’s exactly what we did. I was getting ready to jump off the board and my brother thought it’d be funny to push me off, and that’s exactly what he did. I had trouble getting back onto the paddle board, especially since I didn’t have my life jacket on since I thought I didn’t need one. I also had on my sunglasses when my brother thought it’d be funny to push me off. I lost my favorite pair of sunglasses. They sunk to the bottom of the lake. After about 10 minutes of struggling to get back on the boat, my brother and sister helped pull me up. Never again did I jump of the paddle board without my life jacket. It was quite fun, though, and the water was really warm, like bath water. Then my brother and sister jumped of the paddle board with their life jackets on. It was really fun for a while until we got tired of jumping off. My little brother, on the other hand, was on the paddle board with my parents, and he saw how we were jumping off the paddle board. He wanted to come on our board and jump off, too. We didn’t want him with us, so we started paddling and paddling away as they started getting closer to us.

“Hey! Wait for your brother! He wants to get on with you guys!” my dad yelled.

He seemed like he was getting angry. We didn’t care, though, we just pretended like we didn’t hear a thing and paddled away.

We had our phones with us in the secret compartment in the board where we stored things that we didn’t want to get wet. We checked the time, and we had about 30 minutes to get back to the dock. We were right in the middle of the lake, which took us about an hour to get to. My brother and I paddled as fast as we could to get back to the dock, but the paddle board seemed like it was going nowhere. It felt as if we were in the same place all the time. We tried many different methods to get the paddle board to go faster. We tried paddling backwards, jumping off the paddle board and pushing it, and even trying to swim back to the dock, until my sister and brother jumped off the board and pushed it while I paddled. It was the fastest method that worked. My parents and brother were near the dock most of the time, so they had no trouble getting back. We made it right in time with five minutes to spare. I quickly jumped out of the paddle board, chained it up to the dock, and locked it. I ran back into the store, which my parents were already in. I gave him back the key and my life jacket. Then I paid him the extra ten dollars. It was the best first experience in my life. I had one thing off my bucket list and many more to go.