Not quite a “summer with no shoes,” but there was a definite lack of shoes.

I usually go to this part of the lakefront which used to have a small sand beach and a pebble beach. You’ve seen those beaches in many of my posts.

(Then there’s a relatively long walk to get to a more natural beach, which is still there and untouched.)

They spent all year tearing up and replacing the small beach and the pebble beach. I believe the Army Corps of Engineers were involved. I was pretty sad about this.

They put large rocks along the shore everywhere they went. The purpose seems to be to keep people from getting close to the water.

The small beach was replaced by an expanse of something (maybe native plants, maybe lawn), which is still enclosed by a fence.

The pebble beach was replaced by a tiny pocket of sand beach surrounded by some paved concrete walks.

The paved concrete walks are, considering this kind of project, not terrible.

However, they give you a feeling of being funneled from one place to another:

This peninsula isn’t that bad. You can see the tiny new pocket beach off to one side, but you can get there only by designated concrete walks. Some or all of the fences are probably temporary.

The concrete walks and their fences and borders and rocks give you the feeling of being a zoo animal allowed / forced to walk through marked paths behind its moat, back and forth to its enclosure. People at a zoo are channeled like that too.

We and the zoo animals are one.