‘Twas the best of times, ’twas the worst of times. We had beautiful weather, we got a flat tyre 300 miles from home.

On June 9th and 10th, I fulfilled a life-long dream of walking in the Lake District, originally inspired by Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island. My friend DJ, who’s been doing good work at Cambridge this past year, invited me to join his walking club for a weekend in Northern England. We had a great feast Friday night at Trinity College, an unexpected delight, and woke up early Saturday morning to drive six hours.

Our destination was the hills around Ennerdale Water. Once we arrived, we quickly put on our hiking shoes and walked several kilometers up the valley to the Black Sail hikers lodge. The weather was reasonble, but an uncertain barometer for the next day (the Lake Distict is known for cold rain and howling wind).

Fortunately, we lucked out. Sunday started out nice and only got nicer. We walked up Steeple Peak to access jaw-dropping views towards the Isle of Man. What amazed me were the well-maintained stone fences threading up, down, and all around the hills. The area around wasn’t desolate but it certainly wasn’t well-populated.

After a wonderful day on the trail, we returned to an extremely, screw-through-the-treads flat tyre. That misery isn’t a story worth repeating.