Evanston, August 12

I've been gone for a while and when I got back Mike was on vacation. I was jealous, he got lots of swimming in, but I didn't. We are finally both back so off to the beach, even though the weather wasn't particularly favorable, rather rainy and cooler than the 90 degree days we have been having. I wasn't going to bring a cap, expecting a hot lake, but at the last minute I threw my latex cap in my bag. When we got there Mike immediately got concerned with the uncharacteristic smoothness of the water. "It looks cold", he said. I laughed, forgetting about the August inversion that hits about this time each year. I didn't laugh long once we felt the water. We first went back and got our caps, Mike actually had his thermal cap with him, and then gingerly got in the water. The deeper we got the less happy we were and kept lowering our distance expectations. We finally just stuck to the beach area and were in only about 15 minutes. THE WATER WAS 58 DEGREES. To add to insult to injury the guards came early, closed the water due to e-coli and then made us leave promptly at 10:30, just when the weather was improving. If the e-coli could really survive in this water, more power to them.