As they headed toward the edge of town for Illinois Route 49, Linda said "I packed some sandwiches and Kool-aid for a picnic." She pointed to a mini cooler on the small rear seat. "I've never been to this place. I have no idea if it's a good place to swim or not."
"Then we get to discover it together," he said.
Linda noticed, as they drove along, that Seth was a very active man, shifting around in the seat, placing one arm up, taking it down, inspecting her glove compartment, checking under the seat. "Hey, you've got tapes down here! Anything good?"
"Lots of stuff. Pick something out."
Seth opened the box and glanced over the titles on the rows of tape boxes. He mischievously extracted one, hiding it from Linda as he switched the mode on her stereo from "FM" to cassette. She decided to play along and wait for the music to begin. Side one of Led Zeppelin, "Physical Graffiti," started to play, with "Custard Pie" blaring through her speakers. A few songs into the tape, she had to ask him to turn it down, explaining "I need you to play navigator," as she passed him the paper with Mr. Glienke's directions.
They passed through farmland and onto a gravel, unmarked road with a sign reading "Lake of the Woods - 2 miles." Her heart started to race as pebbles pinged the underside of her car and gray dust billowed around them. Could her dream have been precognitive?
The forest thickened as they proceeded further down the gravel road. It was beginning to look eerily like the terrain in her dream. While she expected that the road would end near a swimming hole, instead they came upon rustic cabins that housed park ranger offices. There was also an ice cream stand and a convenience store.
The gravel road led to a large, gravel parking lot half-filled with cars and trucks at the sign that said "Lake of the Woods - Next Right."
"This kind of looks like a place we used to go to in Indiana when I was little," Seth said, as they parked the car and got out. He carried the cooler and the towels for them as they started walking along the pathway for the lake. Linda could hear the sounds of excited, carefree conversation and children's laughter. She knew that the lake already differed from her dream in that respect alone.
As they walked along the path, the forest became less and less dense until Linda could see the water and the granite cliffs in the distance. The path opened to a clearing where they could see a pebbly beach and a silver lake with ripples from splashing. Trees hung over the bank in a way that reminded Linda of her dream, but dozens of children and adults played in the water while others sat on the beach in aluminum folding chairs. A huge, brown sign near the water's edge read "No Diving - by order of the Illinois State Sheriff's Department."