Momentum

Back late last night (three and a half hours late due to mechanical problems with the plane) from two (mostly) glorious weeks at Lake Geneva, where my father's family has been summering for nearly a century.

I will post my micro diary entries within the next couple of days for anyone who would like to know whether the wind on any given day was good enough for a sail. Yeah, minutae.

But the one thing I want to write about here is hiking on the shore path everyday. While I was growing up, I had no idea how unique it is to have a public shore path around an entire lake, crossing the property of hundreds of private homes, including some owned by exceptionally wealthy people who try as they might can't get the courts to make the right of way go away. It's so satisfyingly egalitarian.

I've only gone completely around the lake (20+ miles) on the path once in my life, but in the past two weeks I figure I hiked about 40 miles on the stretch near our cottage. Usually I was on my own for a two or three-mile round trip, but sometimes I had company. Once I hiked down the shore about three miles and Dad picked me up with the sail boat. Just yesterday morning, my Dad's cousin and I hitched a motorboat ride with her son and he dropped us off three miles down the shore and we hiked back.

This morning we woke up early (7 am! Jack was eager to see his friends again). I decided I wanted to keep up the momentum of my daily hikes at the lake so I headed up to the Hobble Creek Parkway not far from our house, hiked a few miles and got my day off to a great start.