Saturday, July 7, 2018

Holiday Road 2


A three hour drive brought us to my aunt and uncle’s cabin in Minong, Wisconsin. It sits majestically over a calm lake, and is surrounded mostly by long grass and dense woods. The cabin stands on a property I’m familiar with, but haven’t seen for over a decade. They bought the property—I’m guessing—thirty-years-or-so ago and my uncle used to take me on camping and fishing trips when it was just a small clearing in the woods. I was innocent then, and I was thinking the other day that it was possible I had never been on that property under the influence of anything, but then I remember being on a weekend trip when I was about 16 and smoking a little reefer after Uncle Tex went to bed. No matter, I am sober now, and this post isn’t about my drug-riddled past.

We would be there for four days which included two full days and arrival and departure on either end. The weather had treated us properly thus far on our jaunt, and this day was no different: beautiful, sunny skies and low humidity. We pulled up to the cabin, unloaded, and began to relax.

With two children running around the house causing disorder and commotion, and the full summer swing in effect at work, relaxation is something Amanda and I are not used to at any point in our day. We had spent the first four days of our summer vacation on the go, even though we were at another cabin. Even when we weren’t out on the pontoon and just sitting on the deck, we still needed to be alert for dangers to the children as there were vehicles, a lake, and other vacationists about and it seemed that we were always yelling for the girls to stay close to us or far from the water and whatnot. In Minong, it was just us four.

The first day was spent shopping for our weekend at Henson’s Country Foods, which also has sales of cattle feed, haircare, bulk beef jerky from the nearby Jack Link’s factory, and sports an enormous liquor store. I bought a box of bacon ends and pieces which is a treasure for anybody that cares to know. We brought back out booty, and I fired up the grill and made too many cheeseburgers. It was beautiful.

Our first full day was spent in or near the water. We tried out a paddleboat, but with only one backrest to be found, and one adult paddling, it was too much work, and I gave up. We tried the kayaks next and had a little more success but he wind was stronger than us that day and we each had squirming children on our laps and we retreated to the shore. The girls donned P.F.D.s and went swimming. Here are a few good pictures from the first day or so.

 

I posted this picture in my last blog, but I took the time to accidentally upload it again, so now you're stuck with it.

Just another perfect view from my camping chair.





The shimmer coming off of the lake added so much to the beauty of the evening and the trip.


 
 
 
On the second day, something happened. It wasn’t a phenomenon. In fact, according to the internet, there isn’t even a term for it. Upon my first search, the term vergi kept coming up, but it isn’t that. Vergi is the word for rain that evaporates before it hits the ground. What we saw, we’ve all probably seen before but I have never seen it for such duration. For a solid ten minutes, there was rain visible to us over the lake, but it was not raining on us. It was no more than a couple hundred feet from us, but not above us. It was spectacular. After two minutes, I commented that that was probably longer than I had ever seen it happen. According to the internet, it isn’t that uncommon for a rain cloud to exist, but not pour down on me. The article that I read made me feel like kind of an ass, but rain has to start and stop somewhere, I’m not special for being there when it happens. But I still feel special. So special.
We made s’mores, we played by the lake, we ate copious amounts of food, and most importantly, we bonded. Each day brings us closer together, and we survived our first vacation. This picture says it all.
 
It's been six days already since we left that cabin on a lake in Wisconsin. I've worked my full work-week, and it seems like that nine days flew by in a blink, but all of those moments we captured--not just with the camera, but in our minds and our hearts--will be with us forever.
 
 
 
 That’s the last picture I took at the cabin, and my third favorite. The first, of course, is the one of all of us in the screened-in-porch. This is the second—timing is everything.
 
 
 
 



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