TEN DATES // 10 DAY AT THE LAKE

Greetings from Camp Anawanna! 

If I think about it hard enough I can still conjure up exactly the scent of pine and sunshine and warmed wet earth that followed us around all weekend upstate. I'm already starting to over-romanticize it. Warning! Once I start to over-romanticize things it's really hard to stop, and pretty soon I'm researching real estate options and plotting out things like where I'd keep my llama and what she'd like to eat. I'd been gunning for a summer lake trip for whatever reason for, like, four years, and it was one of those instances where somehow it managed to live up to the hype I had pumped into it and how often does that happen? Beach house smeach house. As for me and my house, we will choose the lake.

And so it was that on Sunday we drove through Bethel (Woodstock! Party on, Garth!) to Lake Superior for a swim and the best BLT experience this planet has ever given me. (The waitress, a kind older woman, ruffled Huck's hair as he asked for a glass of milk and it was so lovely I could cry.) 

Huck had been experiencing the kind of jonesing for a swimming day that only a three-year-old can produce, it was nothing short of spectacular. From the moment we crossed the threshold into New Jersey on the George Washington bridge it was all he could talk about. He insisted on carrying his swim trunks in one fist all day, every day, everywhere. Just in case we happened to pass a swimming hole, the man was going to be prepared. After exploring a bit and scoping out the swimming situation, we were finally able to find the perfect spot for a three-year-old who sometimes believes he's an octopus. We were relieved, if we didn't deliver on that swim day we were going to have to live forever with our shame.  On first glance when I got out of the car I swear to you the lake winked at us. It sparkled! I think the clouds may have parted too and I'm pretty sure I heard a choir of voices from somewhere in the distance. And if there were ever any sound I wish I could play on repeat it would be the sound Huck made as he giggled through a very high-pitched Woo-hooooo! as he raced down the hill.

Do you know what I want to remember about this weekend, and why I think it was such a wonderful escape, is just how long it took for the last of the city chaos to work its way out of our systems, and just how intensely good it felt once it had. I forget sometimes that the amount of work it takes for even the simplest things out here, like grabbing a gallon of milk, or getting to the post office before they close, is bordering on stupid, and I should give myself more credit. But by Sunday we had acclimated perfectly to the slower pace and I was able to sit there at the water's edge, lake water lapping at my legs, thinking absolutely zero things while I watched Huck splash about and explore in the shallow end of the lake. Far from the hustle of Manhattan there's a heart rate better suited to chirping birds and open skies and tiny towns built on dirt roads. It was good to remember I could get there, and it was good to remember what it felt like. 

Lake swimming is gross and fantastic. Mud! Weird creatures! The soundtrack to Pocahontas stuck in my head!

Here come the photos, aren't you excited?

Please to appreciate Brandon Holbrook, always fully dressed in the least appropriate places to be fully dressed.

Huck schmoozing the hot lifeguard. He knows what he's doing.