Swimming in the winter!?

It’s that time of year again when I wake up to 32° weather, it warms to the 50s, then back down to the 30s by nightfall. Today I was going to run. Then I was going to ride my bicycle. Then changed my mind back to running. “Not too cold to run,” I thought. But that was an easy decision. As I walked around the pool on the property where I park my travel trailer, I had another thought. Someone should get the leaves out of this pool. I thought, “I’ll show off my toughness by doing a swim cleaning” (that’s where I bring the net with a snorkel mask and get all the leaves out). It’s so much more effective than scooping up from the side of the pool with the long pole.

I can officially say we’re at the point of the year when your face hurts if you go swimming. The water was frigid. All I could think about was the people on the Titanic. It’s no wonder most of them died quick. Just in a backyard Florida pool, my breathing was shortened, my face hurt, and after I got out I shook for about 20 minutes.

Kudos to the guy who shaved his chest to do the polar plunge in this Amazon commercial. He’s a real man.

-Out of the Wilderness