Hume on the physical level a - the mud

Hume was great on so many levels. I doubt that I will get to them all tonight, but I will start

1. Physical - Hume is a beautiful place! We stayed in the new lodges, so we were actually warm at night in a comfortable bed. The food was great and there was coffee at every meal.
On the more adventurous side of it, they drained Hume Lake, and so the lake was much much smaller than it normally is. All around the sides of it was 20-40 meters of mushy, decomposing mud. I went for a walk around the lake on Saturday (because I couldn't find Josh and I wanted to walk around the lake at least once while we were up there). I knew that a trail around the lake existed, because I had walked it before about 10 years ago, but I couldn't find it. So I walked through the woods, found that making my own path was fairly hard, and thus I ended up walking on the edge of the mushy mud. Only, it wasn't all mushy. I looked like it was fairly solid, and parts were, but then the top crust of gunk was dried with anywhere from 1 inch to 1 foot of gushy mud underneath - however, when I first started walking on the muddy edge of the lake I did not know this. As I walked I got farther away from the woods and closer to the water (I am naturally drawn to water) and I really started to enjoy walking through this fascinating mud! It sounded, and felt, like, "crunch-gloop, crunch-slop, crunch-goop!"It was a lot like walking on snow where the top layer has a thin bit of ice and the underneath is soft. As I walked I got more and more invigorated by this wonderful slimy goo that I was walking in and I really enjoyed myself.
One thing that I discovered by this draining of the lake is that Hume Lake has not one feeder stream, or even two, but at least eight major feeder streams. So I ran into these streams fairly often. (They had the most fascinating algae in them! I desperately wished for a microscope!!!!! I'm sure that it would have held me captive for hours.) The first stream I slipped and hopped over fairly successfully. The third stream that I encountered, about 1/5 of the way around the lake, was surrounded by unstable mud as far as I could approach it. As long as I walked softly, I could walk on the mud, but if I was at all vigorous my feet quickly sank into the stinking mush. I hovered at the edge of the stream for a good long while, playing back and forth the different options in my mind. I finally settled on the option that I knew I would chose all along - I jumped from a flat-footed position across the stream to land on more unstable mud. I landed on my feet, but my momentum carried me onward. I took a step forward to catch myself, and my foot went and caught me while my shoe stayed back in the deep mud. The mud even made a cool slurping sound as it sucked my shoe off.
There is only one thing to do when you are standing one shoe off and one shoe on in mud, and that is to take the other shoe off. Once I did this and continued my march in the mud the joyous sensation of crunch and smush/goo beneath my feet was even more pronounced. I, Laurel, at the proud age of 23, still enjoy playing in mud and find it completely a wonderful way to spend an afternoon - and so I did. I walked the rest of the way around Hume Lake in the mud, in my stocking feet and I have rarely had so much fun since I was five! It was the sort of thing that I always wanted to do as a kid, but my wise parents would never let me. So now that I am a mature adult, I finally got to fulfill my childhood wish and play in the mud as much as I wanted.
There is a type of joy that I remember from my childhood that goes beyond words - the sort that words just can't capture and frankly, it never occurs to a child to try and put such a feeling in words because it is so enjoyable that it is not even necessary to say. This is the joy that makes a toddler chottle as she tries to catch an ant between finger and thumb. That is the joy that I had marching in my rediculous stocking-clad feet, with head held high and arms swinging, jollyly waving to the other campers (who were smartly walking on the trail) as I processed in all my filthy splendor around the swampy lake. I had a grand time! I would do it again in an instant.