A very positive outcome of this temperature blanket I’m crocheting is the way it motivates me to swim every day again. I swam a lot in 2023, but it was remarkable how quickly my daily habit from the year before fell away once I didn’t “have” to do it. It feels good to be getting into wild water every day again.

In January Kevin and I drove up to Victoria to visit Eliza and Hazel and stopped along the way for a quick, very cold dip in Lake Siskiyou.

That night we stayed at a McMenamin’s hotel, the Kalama Harbor Lodge, which has become our new favorite place to stop on the drive up to Canada. Good food and drink, great location, and a fun atmosphere make it the perfect rest after a long day of driving. Plus, it’s right on the Columbia River and so the next day, that’s where I dipped. And it was very much just a dip as the water was both freezing and intimidating with its racing currents.

Victoria was lovely. We’ve been using home exchange for our accommodations this year and it’s been such a wonderful way to travel. This is the second house we swapped within Victoria (and we also stayed in two in Vancouver) and every experience has been great.

Eliza, Kevin and I took a day trip to Salt Spring Island one day to visit our dear friend, Kristi from our Montreal days. Kristi’s daughter Adaeze and Eliza were the best (and most mischievous) of friends in their early years. Kristi’s now living in Salt Spring and she showed us around the beautiful island, took us on a great hike, and we all went for a gorgeous cold swim.

The rest of my swimming adventures were with my favorite Victoria swim group, the Cold Water Addicts. These were the folks who welcomed me for my first truly cold water swim back in January of 2022 when I started my swim challenge. Since then, I’ve been back a few times and it always feels like being amongst friends.

This time was extra special though because Kim, my Berkeley swim friend, was in Victoria and she joined me. Kim, who wears a wetsuit in the San Francisco Bay, braved the cold Salish Sea and loved it.

On my way back home I was solo because Kevin had to fly to L.A. for work and I stopped the first night in Bellingham, Washington. There, I joined a group I’d swum with in 2022 for an invigorating swim at Marine Park bright and early before driving the length of Washington and Oregon.

I spent that night in Ashland and then stopped for a quick swim in Lake Siskiyou on my way down. It was pretty intimidating this time not just because I was alone, but also because I was being chased by an epic storm the whole way down the 5. I kept second-guessing whether I would actually stop for the swim, but by the time I was at the freeway exit, there was a lull in the rain and wind so I decided to go for it. As always, I was glad I did.

It was nearly two years to the day ago that I first swam in this lake on a road trip back home from Canada. Out of curiosity, I looked back at what that day was like. This is basically the same view–you can see why I fell in love with it two years ago.