Standing at the edge of Patoka Lake in the southern reaches of Indiana, I gaze through a scrim of oaks toward the sparkling blue-gray water, its hue affected in part by a cloud-speckled cerulean sky. The glassy surface of the lake, unruffled by wind or waves, is as reflective as a mirror and stretches toward the far shore where it rises to low hills framed by an unbroken, leafy canopy of .