Polar Bare

I went polar dipping last week.

My friend Lee has a pond with a long dock. He also has a patio hot tub... Which gives any thought of doing this crazy activity credence... And in that hot tub, a nifty floating serving tray that carries an endless supply of Hussong's Tequila. The pond had been partially cleared of it's ice, and made for a nice pool to jump into from the dock. It was about 7 or 8 strokes to shore from the point of impact, and yes the water was as cold as hell.

But it was fun...

Nothing says exhiliration like a full body submersion into an icy pond followed by a giggling trot back to a frothing hot tub. A couple of shots of tequila... And the routine is repeated over and over again.

The geese that sat out on the frozen ice stared at us as if they wished that their portion of the frosty pond was also cleared of ice. Sitting next to a busy highway, the pond also had alot of drive by traffic, and many honks greeted us as we jumped off of the dock. From the geese and the cars.

On one hand Lee is a maniac. On the other he is a a cultural icon, at least to me. Older, he is a retired farmer who is living out his retirement Jimmy Buffet style - and that is not an easy thing to do while living in Central Iowa... Especially in the middle of January. But he manages to pull it off. He lives in a ranch style house on a private acerage. If you go back a year or two and look at your Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, you will see that some of the snapshots of Marisa Miller, like the one below, were taken on farmland near Perry Iowa. That's Lee's farm. Of course then it was summer, and you can imagine the smell of hay in the soft summer breeze as the beautiful model poses in the Iowa sun.



The polar dipping thing is relatively new to me; this was my second year, but it is a long standing tradition for Lee and a couple of his buddies. They have been doing it for years, usually about the second week of February. Last year we did it on March 1st... A little late by their standards but still plenty early by mine. The pond was very icy and cold last year in March, I embraced their tradition with vigor and shattered their record of 15 dips. (My friend Ben and I did 20... Lee quit after 14.) So naturally we were invited back this year, and they decided to do it earlier than ever; in January.

This year the record wasn't an issue... Nobody was anxious to challenge it. I was content to sit in the hot tub, especially with 5 bottles of Hussong's at my disposal. (I only needed one, believe me.) We dipped 4 or 5 times, a minimal amount by our standards, but we more than made up for it by consuming beer and tequila.

It was agreat day. There is nothing more healthy than a good ol plunge into an icy pond, and nothing more satisfying either. Ben and I capped the day off at sunset by running along the pond buck naked and scaring hundreds of geese into unwanted flight.

What a great way to end a great afternoon.