MOSES LAKE – Though this weekend is not looking particularly great for going out and enjoying the summer breeze, summertime in general is a great time to pick up a new sporting hobby. 

Through the days of my youth, I never got involved in playing sports for school, but I have always loved to go out during the summer and build new interests in sports. Surprisingly Moses Lake has plenty of places to individually go out and get into practicing a sport, and the area continues to add new revenues for people to become more involved in a sport.  

The parks in town have plenty of opportunities for people to get down and find new hobbies. To my knowledge all our parks in town have basketball courts to play on and specifically, McCosh has tennis courts that I’ve spent plenty of time learning how to play the sport, and now people come around and play pickleball as well. 

There have been a couple of times already this summer where I’m passing by the courts on the way home from work and I see people playing tennis and I want so badly to stop by and just play a couple matches against them. I’d probably lose, but I think it would be fun to start dropping in on tennis games and initiating matches against people. 

One of my favorite memories comes from 2016 when the Pokémon GO craze first started and my brothers and cousins were trying to figure out something we could do while walking around the local parks. This is when we discovered Blue Heron Park’s disc golf course, which I thought for the longest time were trash bins, and decided to give it a try. 

Disc golf has become a hobby that I enjoy going out and playing to this day. It takes a decent amount of skill to be good at, and you get to enjoy a day in the park where I’ve run into all sorts of life over the years. 

The same thing got me into tennis where just one day we noticed there were courts and picked up some tennis rackets and started playing. With each of these sports I have gotten multiple friends and family involved and one summer we even held our own little tournament amongst ourselves. 

From what I’ve seen this is how a lot of leagues in town get started as well, a group of people all have a similar desire to take up a hobby and over time the group grows until now their efforts are being officially recognized by the community. 

All of this is to say that while it might seem trivial, going out during the summer months and taking up new hobbies or building off existing ones can actually make a difference to the way you live your life and how people can build a stronger community.