Walden Pond

Concord, Mass - I'm sorry to go on and on about the heat and humidity. To be honest, I love it. I mean we went through June and July without much of summer, so thank God we experiencing it in August.
That said, the pink house is not the perfect place to be in this weather. The heat gets trapped in there and it feels like a sauna. The ceiling fans are going full tilt, but it offers only an iota of relief. You're not even moving and you're dripping sweat. You go to get yourself a cold drink from the fridge and you trip over a cat corpse.
Yesterday we no choice but to hop on our bikes and ride to Walden Pond. It's about 17 miles each way, with a few killer hills, and a delightful dip in the pond's cool crystalline waters as a reward.
Glory hallelujiah, that Thoreau had the right idea! Of course the tiny beach at Walden Pond was packed as per usual, but if you wander away from the crowds (as Thoreau did) there are all kinds of nooks and crannies where you can find your own private piece of pondside paradise. The water is delicious - cool enough to refresh, warm enough to float around for hours, which is exactly what I did.
As an extra treat, there is always the ice cream truck that sits in the parking lot. On a hot day, there is no better energy snack than a good old-fashioned ice cream sandwich.
I know what you are thinking. Certainly Thoreau didn't have ice cream sandwiches and such luxuries when he lived for two years in a little shack on the shores of the pond.
Maybe not... but he did frequently make the two-mile trek through the woods to have dinner at the Emersons' in Concord. So he was pretty well taken care of.
Thoreau wrote "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived..." And I went to the woods because I wished to splash around in the cool water and eat ice cream sandwiches. I think we can understand each other.

Photos courtesy of Walden Pond State Reservation.