While Congressional lawmakers were meeting with their constituents about health care (or, more often, hiding from them), Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, spent a week of the August recess alone on a deserted island near the equator.

Believe it or not, this report isn’t courtesy of The Onion, but is legitimate:

If he were to do it over again – and he wants to – Rep. Jeff Flake would take even fewer provisions for a weeklong stay on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

“I could go a little more minimalist,” Flake said during a phone interview from Washington, D.C.

He won’t need the pan, for example, since he could put the fish and crabs on a skewer. He thinks he could carve, rather than bring along, his own spear.

It took Flake two years to plan his Aug. 20 trip to an uninhabited island on the southeastern tip of the Marshall Islands called Jabonwod. It fulfilled his wish for the physical challenge of living off the land. Next time, he would love to try a similar experiment alongside his wife and children.

But he also said he is thinking of trying it again alone. “By next year again, or a couple more,” he said. “I may be ready.”