Goldenrod of Flourish

Back from our mini-holiday, and glad to be so. As so many things are, it was both glorious and exhausting. The weather couldn't have been more beautiful, in terms of blue skies adorned with perfect snow-white friezes of cloud. The water of Lake Michigan was unbelievably warm and stunningly delightful. How could there be a downside to all this, you might ask? Well, the downside in fact was that it was TOO DARN HOT, and this created a few problems. Tuesday, we arrived, had a snack by the river, and then went straight to the beach for a delicious swim. We took our own food, so we were able to provide ourselves with soup and things without having to deal with restaurants. Wednesday we packed up all our beach gear and walked down a beautiful and relatively short trail to the more solitary end of the beach. The Sparrowhawk valiantly insisted on porting the portable umbrella in its handy carrying case. The bit of the trail that was flooded for several years is flooded yet again. Someone had placed some branches across it as a makeshift bridge. A nice woman who was also on the trail essayed this bridge rather dubiously, so I offered her the Sparrowhawk's walking stick. It helped her over nicely, and then she extended it back to me so I could climb over as well. The Sparrowhawk himself preferred the folded umbrella as a prop. When we got to the beach, I swam for an hour or more, and even the Sparrowhawk went in twice.

So far, this sounds wonderful. And it was.
( (Cut for more endless chat about swimming/hiking/the Lake Michigan shore )