What a joke. It was supposed to be 100 degrees today; it turned out to be 93. When it was 90 yesterday, I said to someone, “It can’t be more than 85, right? It just doesn’t feel that hot.” That’s what two weeks on the east coast will get you. 80 degrees and humid there was, well, darn hot.
My squadron and I had a heat-beating plan in effect for today. After picking everbearing Albion strawberries in the morning (McKenzie River Farm still has lots of berries; go get your jam fixin’s), we headed upriver with our cooler of berries to the headwaters of the McKenzie: Clear Lake. Water doesn’t get any colder than that. We could barely wade in up to our knees before hopping out with numb legs. And the air temperature up there, at 3200 feet, certainly wasn’t in the 90s. Best of all, we didn’t even have to put on sunscreen, because both our wading spot and our picnic spot were shaded. It was lovely—not shivery and not sweaty.
"Mom, will you tell us a story?" I regaled them with memories from elementary school (I tried not to be too preachy; only some of my stories had morals).
Elena wanted to check out Fish Lake, 2 miles up the road. It was probably formed at the same time as Clear Lake, during a lava flow 3000 years ago that dammed them both. Fish Lake dries up every summer and becomes a meadow–a meadow where there are thumbprint-sized crawling frogs.
