Today marks another zero by Lake Rae while we wait for Rainbow Dash’s toe to heal. I am currently under siege by a massive army of evil mosquitoes. Their buzzing fills my ears, whether or not they are actually close by.
I am zipped up in my bivvy, with a tiny hole at the top for air, now covered by my trucker’s hat with the bug net over it. I am sweltering in this great plastic sack, nearly mad with lack of air, and yet it is better than that incessant buzz and constant wriggle of them before my eyes.
I was awoken today by some small noise at the top of my bivvy. I opened my eyes to peak through my breathing hole when I saw a pair of eyes looking right back at me, inches from mine. We both jumped!
It was the little fat chipmunk who calls this campsite his home. My bivvy must have looked empty, my head buried quite deep and my body still for so long.
After the initial fright, I read Anthony Bourdaine’s book “Kitchen Confidential” for an hour, enjoying the vacation from all the walking.
I thought I would be bored today, sitting still after months on the move, but I wasn’t.
I read and eat and read and moved from sun to shade and back again. It reminded me of splendid days at my parents’ house in upstate New York: reading and moving from living room to front porch swing to back porch couch. It was heaven!
After my phone died, reading too long, I decided to enjoy the lake. It was cold and the wind made ripples on the surface, allowing the sunlight to dance, twinkling against the water.
I remembered my mother’s stories of hiking naked with a great friend (I hope this is not too incriminating, mother, but if you knew her, you probably have already heard or suspected the stories). It was the summer solstice, which is also Hike Naked Day.
I decided to join in the fun (and the ancestry), so I took off my pajamas (not having bothered to get out of them all day), and plopped along the shallow edge of the lake, further and further from the safety of our hidden corner.
After plodding along carefully (worried about getting a hook in my paws) for a quarter of an hour a great wind blew, chilling me to the bone. I sat down on a lovely, warm rock in the sun to regain my usual temperature. I looked about the lake and, much to my annoyance, a full clothed man was across the water staring at me.
I gathered my dignity and clambered over rock and sand back to my secluded little corner of untouched wilderness, where I could pretend I was all alone.
After a few more hours of reading and moving from rock to rock and eating some more and chatting with Dash, I am all tucked in, waiting for the buzzing to stop and sleep to come.
