2 Weeks at the Lake

This is a piece I wrote a few years ago about summer road tripping and fun at a lake cottage. It’s that time of year again, so I thought I’d repost it. Enjoy!

We are currently on vacation at a rental house on Hayden Lake in North Idaho. Being out here in the woods on a lake brings back memories of various family vacations as a kid growing up.

Let’s start with the road trip. My parents were never rolling in money, so a family vacation was always a car adventure. All of us kids were packed in the back of the mini van along with all of our stuff and we would travel the highways and byways of Michigan and Wisconsin. I would claim the middle seat and my sister and brother would share the far back bench. And the smells and sounds that would emanate from that rear seat were epic. At some point there was bound to be a farting contest to see who could get the most windows down from the driver.

“Oh Jesus, who farted?” was shouted from the driver’s seat, followed by various windows lowering. If you got them all down, you won. My brother was almost always the winner.

The best seat in the whole car was the far back left because you were out of sight of the driver and beyond the reach of the spanking arm. In that seat you were free to mouth off, pass gas and generally annoy the entire car. Good times.

My wife and I do not have any kids, so our family road trips now consist of a loaded truck filled with all of our toys in the back and our two dogs in the crew cab with us. There are still smells and sounds from the back seat, but they are not human in nature. And it’s my wife that usually turns to me and says, “Oh Jesus, did you fart?” Sometimes yes and other times, no.

But back to our current adventure. Like most trips, the weather has not completely cooperated and we have had everything from cool, windy conditions that are not conducive to playing on the lake, to 100 degree scorchers where you do play on the lake but come home looking like a freshly boiled lobster.

Because of this, we do have some indoor activities. Electronic tech is limited here, so fast internet is non-existent along with a reliable cell phone signal. It’s time to go old school with the ping pong table and various games and puzzles. It’s nice to be off the grid but you do quickly realize how much of your life revolves around being connected.

Rentals are always hit or miss with some good things and some bad. At our current place, the house is quite nice – spacious, air conditioned, and nicely furnished. There’s even an outdoor shower. The not so good things are the long drive down a very twisty road, far distance from town and supplies, crappy cooking utensils, and a general lack of the daily luxuries we are all used to. But it’s a lakefront cabin, not a five star resort.

For us it’s always the lake and waterfront that are the stars of the show. We don’t have lakefront property of our own, so we savor these days with our own private beach, dock, and boat slip. Our Ski Nautique gets a hard workout every day while we waterski, knee board and wake board our brains out. It’s the real reason we come out here and satisfies the urge to buy a lake house of our own.

Golf and cycling also come into play as the body takes a beating from the constant dragging around the lake on our various toys and we look for things that don’t hurt as much. There are bike trails galore out here along with some incredible golf courses. There’s no shortage of fun things to do.

So we will soak up the water sports, sun and heat as much as we can for the next two weeks and look forward to coming back again next year. Our tradition continues…