Good Times: Part 2

So here's another one of my favorite "Melissa Blogs". I do have to add however, that she COMPLETELY forgot to mention the fact that Bart and I were the only ones in shape enough to make it straight to the island and back without swimming to the shore along the way for something to hold on to... and in hopes of warmer water!! Really Melissa... if you're going to tell a story - you have to tell it RIGHT! Yay for us Bart! Enjoy everyone!!

Vertigo
They began the excursion early Friday morning. The four of them piled into Meghan's Liberty and set off for the lake. First they needed to make a side trip to see the slab and the model of the house since Meghan's friends (Susie and Bart) from Colorado had yet to see the site of the new house. Then it was on up to South Lake Tahoe and to the trailhead that leads up to Eagle Lake.

After hiking for a mile up to Eagle Lake, the four sat down to eat lunch on the shores of the lake. As they sat there, trying to ignore the ducks that hovered nearby in the water and hoped for a few bread crumbs to be thrown their way, the group noticed a small island out in the middle of the lake.

"Wouldn't it be fun to swim out to the island?" Susie suggested.

The suggestion was met with varying degrees of enthusiasm, but the idea was out there and continued to come up throughout the conversation. As they packed up the remains of their lunch, it was decided: they would swim out to the island.

After stripping down to their swimsuits, they began to wade into the lake, which when they had felt from shore had felt cool but comfortable. That cool but comfortable feeling didn't last once they had waded in up to the calves of their legs. The further they waded in, the colder the water and the louder the resistance to the proposed swim became. Once they were in up to their waists, they decided they had reached the line where they had to decide once and for all whether they were going to chicken out and wade back to shore or whether they were going to dive in and make the quarter-mile swim out to the island. Meghan decided for them when she jumped up and dived head first into the waters. They were going. They all followed suit and soon their bodies became numb to the chilly waters and their bodies began to feel warm again.

Alternating between floating on their backs and flipping over and actually swimming, they eventually made it to the island--a large boulder planted in the water. As they crawled up onto the sides of the rock to rest, the vertigo set in.

Not only could they not stand up, they couldn't even sit up straight because gravity seemed stronger and would pull their bodies back to lean against the rock. It seemed that the combined effects of the cold lake waters and the 8,000-ft. elevation had taken away all their energy. After several minutes of struggling with vertigo, it subsided and they sat and rested for a while before diving back in to swim back to the shore where they'd left their clothes and backpacks.

The swim back was faster, but more tiring, and the vertigo returned momentarily once they reached the opposite shore.

As they rested up before hiking back to the jeep, Susie asked, "Whose idea was that anyway?"

Entry posted by mvanvuur on August 11 2003 at 11:08 am