Flashback : Algonquin Provincial Park

Recently I took a business trip to Montreal where I was speaking at a conference. I then went to Chicago for a different conference the next week. I planned the first conference so that I would speak the first day and that would give me time to visit someplace I'd always wanted to see, Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. I've taken up ultralight backpacking recently to ease some of the knee and back pain I've been experiencing lately with 55 pound backpacks. This was the ultimate test. How to pack for two conferences and a backpacking trip without checking my bags. As it turns out, packing the backpacking gear was the easy part. The hard part was getting all the clothes for the conferences packed. But, I managed. That's a story for another day.
I spoke at DevTeach in Montreal, then rented a car and drove to Algonquin. I spent two nights there on the Highland Trail doing a loop around Provoking Lake (11 mile loop). The first night I spent at the trail head by Mew Lake. The next morning I hiked around the west side into a campsite on the east side. I was quite hot and sweaty and glad to make camp. I dropped my backpack and hopped into the lake. The water was still extremely cold and I thought I saw some ice still floating in the lake a ways off. As soon as I got out and hung up my clothes to dry, it started raining. . .
I quickly set up my tarp and got underneath it with my sleeping bag. Changed into my favorite toasty silk underwear and hopped into the sleeping bag. That night I had a dream that people were clapping for something I'd done. I don't remember what it was that I was doing in my dream, I just remember that people kept clapping, really loudly. I awoke, yelling at all the people to stop clapping. It was dark and the only sound I could hear was the sound of the rain pounding on my tarp. It sounded just like people clapping. Smiling at myself, I went back to sleep.