Lakerage

Wow, over a week without a post! As you'll see by future posts, I wasn't slacking- I was busy. I lived with Dustin for a week, which was quite busy and therefore not very conducive to blog writing.

So anyway, lakerage.

After going to bed at like 2 or 3 after hiking Mount Hale and swimming in very cold air, Kevin and I heard Pog walking around outside at about 7:30 in the morning and decided that we would join him in beginning complete ownership of the day. This has become a tradition, and while I used to argue against it ("seriously, you're on vacation and stayed up till 3 drinking... you're gonna get up at 7 in the morning? GO TO SLEEP!!"), I have since changed my ways and agreed that if you're gonna drive all the way up there and basically only have 1 day to party (Sunday is usually a clean-up-hang-out-for-a-bit-and-leave day), you might as well party hard.

Maidstone Lake at 7:30am

So with that in mind, I ate a cliff bar, drank some water and iced tea, and jumped in the lake before 8. I have been threatening for years to swim to the other side of the lake and back, and had decided that this would be the year that it had to happen. I mean, jeez, I have a blog now. I can't back out of it! And I actually practiced by swimming a ton all summer and making sure my arms were super strong and ready to go. So, I slapped on the GoPro and began the swim. Simone randomly joined me- she had said on facebook that she would swim it as well a week earlier, but I didn't fully believe her. Kevin and Pog trailed along in a boat to make sure we didn't drown (i.e. drank beers and didn't pay any attention to us 500 feet away).

Kevin on duty, staring into space and filming god knows what while we drown

It was great, and a beautiful way to start the day. We took our time. Simone did the breaststroke the entire way (must.. hold... back... jokes...) and I switched back and forth between backstroke and sidestroke. I was relaxed and happy, took some time to shed water and talk in the middle, and still flew. It was great.

See those dots? That's me and Simone.

At the other side, I met a wicked awesome dog that was freaking out at the creature that was swimming towards her.

Look next to Pog's left cheek for me and the dog. If it wasn't already obvious, some of these pictures came from Pog. Thanks Pog!

We sat around a bit and swam back. It was both shorter and longer than we thought. It's amazing how much the distance can change when you're in the middle of the lake and you realize how much a trick of the eye it is to think it's much closer than it is. This is often how many people drown during long distance swims- they freak out when they realize how deceptive water is. But considering by every map I looked at, it looked like about a half a mile across, we felt pretty good for starting the day with a mile swim. I now had done the 1 thing I HAD to do, and loved every second of it. I was wide awake, strong and tired at the same time, and felt like I owned the day. And it was like 9am.

Naro cooked some bacon and eggs while Pog sang him a song,

 

I ate this:

Kevin experimented with his GoPro,

And we sat around for a bit while Pog danced for us.

We then loaded everyone up and went on a boat ride to some huge rock at the other end of the lake.

Sarah's dog Moxie stopped moving for 2 seconds for me to take a sweet picture of her, 

and I jumped in to swim some more. I headed to the rock to explore, and quickly realized that Naro had never dropped the anchor that I thought he had, and by the time I decided to turn around, the boat was twice as far away as it had been when I jumped in. Awesome.

When we got back, Pog and I decided to go explore and see if we could find weird stuff underwater. The water was pretty clear, and rocks are amazing in this lake. They are in some of the weirdest shapes I've seen and are ENORMOUS. It was actually pretty scary, just seeing how huge the rocks were next to how fast the lake goes from fun and interesting to immediate drop offs to evil blackness. I'd have amazing footage (since I was swimming with my GoPro), but of course this was when I ran out of space and the stupid thing shut off on me. Pog found quite the treasure though, which we left it for the Naros to find later.

A plastic headless toy found underwater in slime?! Who wouldn't want that?!

Then, while relaxing on the deck, Sarah suddenly freaked out as Moxie was missing and nobody knew how long she had been gone for. After lots of yelling and running, we found her next door surprisingly quickly and we settled back into porch relax mode almost immediately. It was then that I got to see one of my favorite things at lakerage- the moment when we realize how long a day actually is when you start raging at 7:30 in the morning. Naro started fiddling with the grill and asked what people wanted with their chicken. 

"Naro, what are you doing dude?" 

"cooking dinner." 

"dude, it's like 3:30" 

"no... wait, are you serious?"

"actually, now that I'm actually looking, it's 2:45"

So he decided to go on another boat ride. I had hiked a 4,000 footer less than 24 hours ago, swam across a lake and back with a leg that I could barely walk down stairs with, and swam on 3 different occasions. My arms probably wouldn't work the next day and my legs definitely wouldn't. SO, I decided that it was time not to relax, but to continue raging and kayak all over the lake, following the boat. 

When it came time to go back, I took Naro up on his offer to get towed back (my arms were pretty dead), and we invented extreme boat kayaking. It was fun and hilarious, especially when Naro floored it and completely soaked me. Jerk. 

I love kayaking. It felt great to be out there. But, it turns out the real party may have been on the boat:

I swam one more time when we got back, and as darkness settled, I had some nice moments of peace, watching how beautiful the lake can be. I had a feeling here 2 lakerages ago of a supreme bliss I often try to emulate. I had been working extremely hard and felt stress and panic all the time. Work was killing me and I was living a life of walking into my room at the end of the day and just collapsing in my bed and sleeping instantly. Even during lakerage, I felt like I had to do all this stuff and be crazy. Finally, towards the end of the day, I just lay on a float and stared out at the other side of the lake while everyone else prepared dinner and changed into night mode behind me. I just lay there, shutting everything out and doing nothing but existing- there, in that moment. Just me, the lake, my view, and peace. I somehow shut everything off and just realized in that moment, that I was at perfect peace with the world and nothing was bad. "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." It was glorious. I've tried to have as many moments like that as possible this summer, and although they mean a little bit less without stress, they are still important. 

Loons LOVE this lake.

Pog loves this lake.

How could anyone not love this lake? It's gorgeous.

Come on.

Night set in and we ate and had happy times. Pog stepped it up and surprised us with some glowsticks.

works as a beer holder

or just a sketchy tribal space costume

And Nick surprised us with some fireworks.

I think the last 2 lakerages I've gone to, Nick has brought a pretty serious collection of fireworks, but it had been 2 years since I'd been to one or seen Nick, and he's pretty quiet. So when I suddenly saw him on the neighbors deck messing around with something, I was extremely happy. Nothing says "end of summer party" than fireworks, and he didn't skimp. These were incredible. 

4 people left that night, since we had been watching Hurricane Irene all weekend and had already decided we would be leaving very early on Sunday to avoid it. I stayed and talked some more and slept in a very small room with 4 people and a dog. We got up at 7:30 again the next day and hit the road by 9. It turns out we should have left much earlier, as the worst I saw of the hurricane/tropical storm was while driving from pretty much the top of the white mountains to my house. It was AWFUL driving and I found out half way through the drive that the safe haven I was fighting my way to already had lost power. 

right mike, don't focus on the road while driving through a hurricane- take pictures. 

I made the best of it though, by taking a much needed 4 hour nap, then capitalizing on Rich and Holly's idea to make grilled cheeses by the stove.

3 cheeses and bacon? I'm disgustingly full right now and just got starving. 

We stayed up until the power came back on, reading and talking with a crank radio as our entertainment. This obviously wasn't the best way to end the weekend, but Saturday was awesome enough to fill several weekends. Thank you once again Lakerage, for ruling.  It was a smaller turnout this year, but those who went loved every second, and a smaller turnout meant I got to talk more to people who I don't talk to enough. All in all, another excellent lakerage. 

happy

Here, I made a video. It's good. 

"Lakerage" from Mike Alexander on Vimeo

Kevin made one too. Short and to the point. And featuring dogcam. 

currently listening to: Owl City, Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire, Conditions