Celebrating the Solstice at Lake Erie

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice, or Litha to us pagans.  I don't write a lot about spirituality on this blog 'cause that's not really what I wanted the blog to be about, but I am trying to get more in touch with my spirituality, so maybe that will change some in the future.  Anyway, yesterday was a pagan holiday and I decided I wanted to do something to celebrate.

I planned to enjoy a peach and orange smoothie while watching the sunrise, but it was cloudy in the morning, so that didn't really happen.  There wasn't much to watch.  Just a gradually lightening of the gray.  And it was foggy.

Then Isaac and I, along with a friend, went up to Lake Erie.  I packed a picnic lunch with fresh fruit and yogurt and a couple of protein bars.  Our friend is not pagan so I just said we were going because it was the first day of summer.  Whatever.

We had a great time.  We found a fairly secluded strip of beach, which was lovely to walk on.  Isaac found a dead fish, which he thought was lovely to roll in.  He was rolling in it before I even saw the fish.  How gross.  He said it was better than rolling in goose poop.

After he rolled in the fish, I decided to let him off leash so he could swim in the lake and wash off the dead fish.  Because wet dog smell is infinitely better than dead fish smell, right?

I almost never let Isaac off leash except at an enclosed dog park.  I trust him to come back to me, but not to come when I call him.  He'll come back when he's ready to.  Which doesn't always work well for me.  Plus, I didn't want him to bother any other people on the beach, because dogs are not really supposed to be off leash there.  But there were no other people anywhere nearby and, well, dead fish smell.

Here is a picture of Isaac in the water.

He wasn't quite sure about the waves at first, but after a few seconds decided he loved them.  He had so much fun.

He run down the beach as fast as he could, ran back, jumped in the water, swam a little bit, got out and ran down the beach as fast as he could, repeat, repeat, repeat.  He loves the water but I think he enjoys swimming more at the dog beach with other dogs.  He didn't swim all that much all by himself.

Then some people appeared, way down the beach, and he ran all the way down there.  I went after him but of course he got there way before me.  As soon as I got there, I asked if they were afraid of dogs.  I was going to put him back on the leash right away if they were or if he was bothering them in any way.  They said no, of course they weren't afraid, he was a lovely dog and they wished they had that much energy.  No kidding.  Me too.

They had three kids, all preteen or teenagers, that were playing in the water and Isaac wanted to play with them.  They were throwing a ball and of course Isaac wanted to play with that.  So they played a little bit and then I made Isaac give the ball back (he didn't want to) and put him back on his leash and we went on.

We had a really good time.  I love seeing Isaac have so much fun.  He thinks everything is fun and just watching him have fun makes things fun.