The word of the weekend: water. (Also this entry is brought to you by the letter W!)

Yesterday we visited the largest freshwater spring in the world (mildly underwhelming,) Eric attempted a load of laundry in the creek, and I discovered a brilliant swimming hole named “Crystal Pool” at a nearby scenic reserve. I would suggest the latter be renamed “Ice Crystal Pool,” but I still went for a quick dip to fulfill a ballin’ photo op and to sooth my PMSing soul in a river the Maori have long believed to have mystical healing properties.

Today’s aquatic adventures began in the form of my bathing! Huzzah! Eric is keeping track of all sorts of statistics in his journal, and has catalogued this as the X day since my last shower. (My apologies, the number is too horrific for me to admit publicly yet.) Anyway, I swallowed my pride and brought my shampoo and soap caddy to the cold, outdoor shower head at the park. I endured only a slight humiliation as families strolling on a Sunday morning took note of the hairy armpits being soaped across the sidewalk. OH, WELL. I’m clean (today) and nothing can dampen my deep, joyous contentment over silky hair. Not even our newly broken… (wait for it) … water pump! It’s not the worst problem we’ve been faced with on our trip so far, but it reduces our fully functional appliances down to to one: the stove. Unfortunately our batteries for the “house” are still on the fritz, meaning minimal charging of our electronics + no refrigerator, which leads us into our final ode to H2O. We devised a strategy today to keep our dinner meat + produce cold sans fridge, by attempting to harness the cool temps of the campsite river. We hacked an empty water bottle apart (I wasn’t even trying for that w,) stuffed our perishables inside, then wedged it into the shallows with a steady stream to pass through the plastic. It wasn’t a 100% success, but we’ve just finished our dinner and are suffereing no apparent ill effects.

Now that both tonight’s dinner + journaling are done, time to wash all of these highs and lows down with a glass of WINE.

-K

^ Riverstone. A 7/10 for me, 6.5 for E.

^ Ice Crystal Pool. It hits you like a thousand knives stabbing you all over your body. You can’t breathe. You can’t think. At least, not about anything but the pain. Certain I now know what ice fishing on Lake Wissota is like.

^ My sweet eldest nephew reminding us to KEEP LEFT. (And when I say us, I do mean Eric. The last time I tried to learn how to drive a manual, it ended in tears.)

^ More cooking adventures. This is the 3rd time we’ve tried and failed to make a proper cuppa. (Street cred rapidly sinking.)