We sat in the early fall chill, our bodies straining towards any last lingering sunlight as the lake waters lapped the smooth grey stones and time slipped away to the sound of Ravens over the valley, the slapping of duck feet in the reeds, and a hidden woodpecker searching for lunch high up in the pines. Our last day at Lake Crescent ended with a bit of drama as we discovered we’d been visited by a hungry and destructive mouse during the night who ate holes in my wife’s new backpack, but despite this minor rodentia emergency, the weekend was as near perfect and as close to my imagined and wished-for getaway as possible.