The Lake of the Ozarks (In Winter)

The lake of the Ozarks has more shoreline than the whole eastern coast of the United States of America. It's twists and turns extend through a surprisingly small network of hills to create a form thats similar to an eastern dragon.

Our lakehouse is on the dragons tail, just where the river begins to turn into lake. So the waters always moving, barely, and never entirely freezes over. Sometimes it's ice to the very center of the channel, but so thin in the middle that boats can be and are routinely forced through it. When this happens, all the ice ripples and buckles in its wake, forming little sheets of ice about an inch and a half thick at the very shore.

Great fun can be had with this ice; tear a huge sheet off the water, break it into fist sized chunks, and hurl it over the surface of the water. It slides, and oftentimes splinters before it does, sending 2 dozen shards of ice dashing across the lake and sparkling in the sun.