Swimming in Nuclear Lake

I am currently in Dalton, MA about 1,554 miles from Springer and 622 from Katahdin. I am staying with Rob in the Birdcage. Rob was recommended by several other thru hikers I have talked with and by the mayor in Unionville, NY. So tonight Shadow and I are staying at his house. Rob works in North Adams which is about 23 miles north on the trail so tomorrow he will drop us off and we will hike back to his house, and then the day after continue from where we left off. This will be Shadow's first south bound slack pack. At first he did not believe in them, but since his mail drop has not yet arrived we have to be here tomorrow anyway, so it works out.
In the last ten days we were able to finish NY, get all the way through CT and 2/3 of the way through Mass. This is not from the blistering pace we have set (my feet are happy that it is not a blistering pace), but because these states are very short. By the end of the week we will be into VT and back into states that take over a week to hike through. It also looks like Shadow and I will be parting ways with the Peackock family. The last week or so we were meeting up for meals and at shelters, not really hiking together. Now they have decided to aim for a finish date about one week ater my goal date of Aug 31. This means they will be taking some slower days and more zeros.
I do not have my guide book with me to spark my memory nor do I have the time (only an hour on the computers in the library) to do a full blow by blow account of the time since my last update, but I can mention the highlights. One of which was swimming in Nuclear Lake. Nuclear Lake is in NY, but had been given a clean bill of health after previous testing regimes went on in the area. The lake was gorgeous and the 3 eyed fish did not bite too hard. It was a hot day and a shallow warm lake which made it a wonderful place for a midafternoon swim. It currently ranks after the YMCA lake in New Jersey and Upper Goose Pond for top simming holes on the AT. Two nights ago I stayed at Upper Goose Pond Cabin. This is a cabin with a caretaker right on the pond (it should really be called a lake) in Massachusetts. Shadow and I arrived at 1 and promptly went swimming. We had just finished 16 miles and were done for the day. It had been raining that morning but was starting to get nice and we were ready for a swim. It was wonderful. When Peacock and Daddy-O arrived at 6 it was now completely bright and sunny, so we went in again. There is an island in the middle of the lake and Peacock and I swam out there and sunned ourselves and then swam back. That night I played UNO with Shadow and Vegan (a section hiker from NY), and then had blueberry pancakes and coffee in the morning. That was what hiking should be all about. Blueberry pankcakes make the mornings that much better.
Earlier that evening Shadow and I attempted to play checkers. We ran into some disagreements about the rules. I was not aware that there are regional variations on the rules, but apparently there are "Southern Rules." Once a piece has been kinged Shadow says it can now move an unlimited number of spaces in one direction. It can even move three spaces and then jump over another piece. He tried that on me and at that point I forfeited the game in disgust. Since then I have been asking everyone I run into about these rules variations. No one else has heard about them. Not even the Southerners we have been hiking with. So if any of you know about these "Southern Rules" variations, I would love to hear it.
One of the nice things about New England is that we are back to good water sources and swimmable lakes and lots of blueberries. Several times I have picked enough blueberries for dessert and/or breakfast the next morning. The unfortunate down side of lots of good water is that we now have to deal with lots of mosquitos. I have been sleeping in my tent almost every night, and my Cutter Advanced protection does not cut it. When it comes to bug spray, use deet, or don't bother. The trail is also not as well marked. I think that I have lost my touch for route finding (I always lead and Shadow follows). I have lost the trail more oftern in the 54 miles that we have been in Massachsetts than I have in the previous 1500 miles. The one upside is that I know other people who have gotten lost at the same points on the trail. Is it that hard to put a sufficient amount of blazes on a trail and do a little maintenance? What makes it worse is that on one well groomed section we came across a maintainer who was painting blazes on almost every tree. So now we have a section where you can see the next seven white blazes, and others where you cannot even follow the trail. It makes no sense to me.