Afterglow RFT VII: A Little Slice of Heaven - Day 1

My Dad rented a cabin at Afterglow for a week in September of 2017 and allowed me to come stay for a couple of days. So it's not unusual for me to make a return trip here outside of July. This year he had it from Saturday September 2nd - Saturday September 9th. Because of other commitments (Mom's birthday over Labor Day weekend) I decided to come up on Thursday the 7th and stay for a few days. In the past I have brought someone with me (Jenny, Kevin, BK) for one of these RFT adventures, but this time I would be flying solo yet again.

 

Pete was out on top of his house taking pictures of the Northern Lights. I was on the ground and did not possess his advanced camera equipment and photo taking skills, so I was not able to see it (although he did show them to me later). But with the camera on my cell phone I was able to get these low light shots. And while I'm no fine critic of photographs, I would say that this was pretty damn good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't leave until closer to noon and it takes about 4 hrs 30 mins to get to Afterglow (without any stops). So it was about 4:30pm by the time I got here. As you can see from the pictures it was cloudy but they don't tell you that it was also 51 degrees. But I swim every day that I'm at Afterglow, so nothing would stop me. I did say hello to my Dad, Kathy and the dogs so that someone at least knew I was out in the water. But aside from that I was just a crazy boy with dreams and more problems than can be counted. I didn't feel alone because I had my camera with me. Because with these pictures and videos I knew I could eventually tell my story to the World so you could pretend that you were there with me. I hope you feel that way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite place in the entire World may very well be on top of the HD. From there you get to see the entire lake and are treated with spectacular views. The reason that I say almost is because I think I love being in the water more than being on top of it. But the wonderful part about going up on the HD is that you eventually have to go down into the water again. So really any trip out to the raft gives me everything that I need in one location. The cloud cover may have prevented the sun from warming me up (it was colder out there than I would have preferred) but it does provide an interesting backdrop and color palette to set this apart from the pictures that I take during the Summer.

 

After I got out of the water I stuck around on dry land long enough to take a few more pictures. I know I have thousands of pictures of this place but I never get tired of taking new ones or looking at them years later. I went to the hot tub to warm up only to find that the hot tub was dry. Sadness set in but I hit up the sauna to put those tears to good use (by splashing them on the hot rocks to make steam). I was sweating like a banshee in there and when I saw my spirit animal, I knew it was time to leave and go back to the cabin as day turned into night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I changed out of my swimwear and into more late Summer nighttime appropriate clothing. I previously mentioned that it was only 51 degrees at 430pm when I went swimming, so obviously it was colder than that when the Sun was no longer present. So how could I create some warmth? By setting the World on fire of course! While that would be irresponsible, I choose instead to burn a couple of logs in the fire pit while the moon lit up the night sky. Some fog also rolled in which allowed me to take some pictures that were unique to this moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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