The next day, we took it easy.  After all of the driving we had done, we deserved to take it easy for a couple of days.  And the best way to take it easy was to spend the day out on the lake.

Once we were done eating breakfast, we changed into our swimwear and took the boat out onto Lake Murray.  It was only 9:00 a.m., but it was already very hot and humid outside.  Now, being from Arizona, I thought I was used to the heat and the humidity, having suffered through many a monsoon season; but this was a whole new level of "hot" - otherwise known as "hot and sticky".  It's the kind of hot where you just can't cool down. 

Case in point: in the dry, Arizona heat, when it is one hundred five degrees outside, I can soak in an eighty-degree pool and actually feel cooler when I emerge from it.  In South Carolina, where it was only ninety degrees but with eighty-five percent humidity, I could jump into Lake Murray in a futile attempt to cool down, only to discover that the lake feels like bath water - and I certainly didn't feel any cooler when I emerged from the lake!

It was, however, much more refreshing than just sitting outside in the humidity, so we spent a good part of the day in the lake.  It also gave us a good opportunity to work with Mary on her swimming techniques.  She had just finished taking swim lessons through the City of Phoenix and was finally becoming a much better swimmer.  She was no longer afraid to jump into the water, and she was getting much better at floating, too.  She still wasn't strong enough to be out on the lake without a life jacket and insisted on wearing one while she was in the water; but every now and then, John removed her life jacket so that she could try swimming without it. 

When we were tired of swimming, we tried doing a little fishing, off the side of the boat.  We didn't catch anything, though; apparently, the fish knew better than to be near the surface of the water when it was that warm outside. 

After Mary had had enough of the water, we decided to go explore the lake.  We took turns driving the boat - even Mary had her turn - and explored the waters around Dreher Island State Park.  We also took the boat out onto the open waters, where the lake was very wide; John wondered if he could make it to the dam but changed his mind when he realized that it was just too hot to go that far.

Around 3:00 in the afternoon, we finally returned to the Lake House and rested until it was time to go to dinner. 

That evening, we had plans to go to Omi and Opa's house for dinner - and it was quite the interesting gathering!  Omi and Opa shared stories with us that they had never shared with us before: stories of Opa as a child, of how they met, of their lives in WWII Germany, of coming to America.  John was completely fascinated; true, he knew most of their stories, but these were stories that he had never heard before, and he was glad that they were sharing them.

On the way back to the lake house that night, John and I talked about how nice it was to spend that one-on-one time with Omi and Opa, to be able to hear those stories.  One day, they will no longer be with us, but we will have those stories to pass down to Mary's children and grandchildren.  After all that we went through to get to South Carolina - the traffic ticket, the sleazy hotel in Dallas, the long hours spent driving and the countless "are-we-there-yets?" - it was all worth it.

Return to South Carolina or Bust.

Return to Naked in the Woods.