I’ve started setting up yoga hikes for the summertime. Yoga either outside or in studio followed by a hike through a nearby park. I ventured into outdoor yoga territory on one of the brightest mornings, and that led to a super sunny hike around Hempstead Lake. The captain came for the hiking part, and we took the path on the sand closest to the lake this time, which meant it was like a completely different park.

Some parts were extremely buggy and spiderwebby, which is not my kind of outdoorsy. However, there were some spaces that felt like tropical island beaches, including one such space where people were swimming, which I wouldn’t think to do in this particular lake, but then again, I don’t think to swim anywhere ever. There were also spaces where the woods framed the lake, and places that had boats, and places that had roosters (I’m not joking—there was a rooster). Some duck friends crossed the path, too.

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Then we encountered a guy. This guy had on a shirt, which is what I call progress. He was sitting on a concrete thing that you’ve gotta climb up and over to keep going on the path. As we got closer, he started to move a bit to make way for us. Capt climbed over first and said to him something like, Sorry to get your way, and the guy was like, No, no, man, it’s a public park, man, it’s for everyone, man. By the time I climbed up the concrete and down the slab on the other side, I had a contact high from whom I assume is a cousin of Jeff Spicoli.

We made it around the lake to where there’s a concrete water thingie where the water runs out and under the road. I remembered walking here a different time of year when the sand shows down by the water, and that seemed to be a way around this. However, this time, there was no sand to walk on. The capt started explaining high and low tides to me, and I said something about the moon because that’s the only thing I know about tides—the moon is in charge. Then he said, We could walk across it. Then I said, No we cannot.

And so, we made our way back onto the higher path and found the rest of the way around the lake. Jeff Spicoli’s cousin was no longer at the concrete slab by the time we doublebacked. Was this yet another brief encounter with another realm? Maybe! More likely, though, he found another place to get high. There are tons of places open to anyone to smoke up in a public park, man.