It’s time I took a short break, watched the lake for a while, did some navel-gazing, and maybe some journaling. The trouble is the weather has been beastly hot. It may be my imagination, but it certainly seems to be my experience that exercise combined with high temps triggers my AFIB. So, thoughts of taking a few days by the lake have been put on the back burner.

Looking ahead, though, if I didn’t mind some rain, the temperatures from Thursday through Monday looked good for a four-night, five-day visit to the lake.

I hummed and hawed a lot. Did I really fancy several days in what looked to be very humid conditions? The forecast seemed to be changing radically by the hour — for good and bad — In the end, I decided to try it. I could always bail out if I needed to. I packed a second tarp so I could set up a dry area to sit and prepare meals. I sorted out five days of meals and packed a dry change of clothes — I’ve hiked down to the lake in a thunderstorm before, and it took days to dry my clothes out.

Thursday, I was on the road by eleven and at the trailhead shortly after noon.