Evanston, August 18

Back at my old haunt in Evanston early on a unseasonably cool morning. This time I am with Ken and a new recruit, Sue. We had hoped the wind early last evening had died sufficently so that we could swim to the wall, but it was clearly too wavy. An out-and-back swim seemed prudent. Bit it wasn't until we were in the water that we realized that there were 3 to 4 foot waves. At one point I saw Ken on the face of a wave looking as if he was trying to climb straight up. After about 10 minutes we turned around for the 4 minute swim back. The water was only 71 but seemed warm relative to the 68 degree breeze from the south east. We attempted to body surf for a while but although the waves were large enough they seemed rather thin and not packing much energy. We each got about one decent ride. We called it a day, Sue had a breakfast to go to, Ken and I sat on the beach for a short while. Other than a quick dog walker or too we were completely alone. Several small planes pulling advertisements were making slow progress down the lake positioning themselves for the air show, for now with an audience of just the two of us.