"Toes in the Water". . . Ready for the Lake?

Lucky enough to have a friend with lake house? Don’t show up empty-handed. These housewarming gifts for the lake house are guaranteed to delight your host (and insure an invitation to return).

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Float without effort, while holding a cold beverage

Is there anything better than floating on the lake? Nope. But it is an art. You can’t just go about it willy-nilly.

Ideally you want to be upright — not horizontal — so you can chat with your friends. And you want to be high enough up in the water to hold your cold beverage and sip it comfortably and successfully.

What a dilemma! Rafts have the wrong position. And life jackets just keep your head out of water; they aren’t elevated sufficiently. This required some sophisticated problem-solving. In my misspent youth, we solved this problem by turning ski-style life jackets upside down, and putting our legs into the arms, and buckling them up. We called this the “redneck float,” and it does the job.

The problem with the “redneck float” is that in order to accomplish the sophisticated maneuver of stepping into the upside lifejacket and getting it buckled, you have to put the lifejacket on while out of the water. And I cannot describe to you how humiliating (and decidedly unglamorous) this look is. Picture an adult in a giant rubber diaper.

Enter the lake’s greatest invention, after cold beer: the pool saddle. These are my favorites, and are available on Amazon:

There are several brands on Amazon. I haven’t tried this one, but I love that they call it the Beach Bronco.

Do pool saddles work? A picture is worth a thousand words:

That’s me and some girlfriends, getting our full lake vibe on. Notice how the saddle holds us comfortably high enough to hold on to those crucial beverages.

For the expert lake/float/beverage aficionado, you can do the saddle-noodle combo. This is not recommended for amateurs:

pool saddle and noodle combo — Husbands demonstrating the expert saddle/noodle combo, allowing a comfortable float while presenting zero challenge to core strength

The saddle keeps them floating, while the noodle insures complete stability. Keep that beer safe, boys!

Open that cold beverage

Hydration is very important. Insure that your host is never without a quick path to a cool beverage.

For the lake house deck, a wall-mounted bottle opener:

Or for the boat, a collegiate opener:

How about some wine for your sunset cruise? The waiter’s corkscrew is always handy.

Or for the truly lazy, when you just can’t summon enough energy to twist a corkscrew, there are electric wine openers:

By the way, don’t waste your money on wine stoppers. There is never any wine leftover when you’re at the lake.

Keep that beverage cold

Beverages get warm very quickly on a hot summer day. Once again, modern technology is our friend, with the invention of the koozie. These are cute:

Or you can go collegiate, and support your favorite team:

And don’t forget us wine drinkers, we like our wine kept cold in a cute wine tumbler.

For REALLY good friends: the YETI cooler

You will be forever popular. Insure that return invitation with the “dream” cooler, the Yeti.

And finally, the Granddaddy of all lake gifts, the water mat

OK, this would be an over-the-top gift. It would also be an incredibly awesome gift!

So what do I mean by water mat? I’m talking about a giant raft, that floats — but bends — and can hold multiple people at once. There are many on Amazon; I can’t personally vouch for any of those. In our lake house days, we had one (a brand that may not exist anymore), and it was our favorite “toy” at the lake.