I spent last weekend at Lake George celebrating the wedding of one of my oldest and closest friends. It was a perfectly-planned wedding, with just the right mix of tradition (the white dress, the toasts) and innovation (we all played kazoos to the tune of “All You Need is Love” for the processional). The setting couldn’t have been more beautiful for drinking beers and participating in afternoon kayaking jaunts.

Lake George is a wonderful place. As a child of the beach, I’d never really gotten the lake house phenomenon before. Nostalgic childhood for me meant sandy toes, sunburned noses, ugly towels, flip-flops. Soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches packed in coolers. I’d spent very little time camping and even less time on the shore of any lake. Dirt, Adirondack chairs, and lakeside porches were a mystery. Maybe that’s why I’m starting to love them so much.

The lakeside seems calm and welcoming in a way that the beach is not, in part because of the beach’s blistering sunshine and relentless waves. (There are also, of course, dreaded jelly fish.) The lake is engaging–at least this lake was, as the host of too many activities to list. The beach welcomes the kind of stupefied relaxation that, to me, becomes tiring very quickly.

Which isn’t to say you don’t sometimes need that kind of relaxation.