Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Where DID all these people come from??

I visited The Ledges last Friday, and also on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  Weather on Friday was perfect - clear and sunny, warm, not too much wind - but given the perfect conditions, surprisingly few people were there.

Saturday was an entirely different affair.  It was warm and humid and unstable, but nevertheless 200 people showed up, many of them apparently new - and many via boats and rafts.  It looked like the beginnings of a regular party!  But the weather took a hard turn for the worst at about 2:30 in the afternoon, and we had thunder, lightning, torrential downpours - which just did not let up.  Surprisingly, most of the visitors stuck around, hiding under tarpaulins or in the woods.  After a while I gave up and walked back to my car, which was far enough for me to be thoroughly soaked - but I'm told others stuck it out until 5:30 or even later.  Hardy bunch!  I shudder to think how they managed to paddle those rafts back across the lake during the storm, though.

Sunday looked like it was going to be a repeat of Saturday - but although we had rain showers, there was no thunder or lightning, so people just swam around in the rain.  The rain showers started earlier, so the number of people were less, but still substantially above Friday's numbers.  Lots of extended families came, which was nice - even though not all of them were nudists, of course.

Monday it was cooler and breezy but quite sunny.  The place looked almost deserted.  I had the entire main ledge to myself.

I suppose it is inevitable that The Ledges becomes more or less a weekend phenomenon.  There are many reasons for this.  For one thing, it is becoming ever more unusual for families to spend significant amounts of their summers in the country.  People are working more and more, and when they aren't working they're paying their bills and doing their taxes.  Also, the school year is also growing in length - which is something I'm not sure I approve of, since I think we're already in danger of overemphasizing formal education at the expense of what I would call "life education".  But that's a good subject for a different post.