On Golden Pond

Green Lake, Wisconsin - Thur. June 11th to Sunday June 14th, 2009

Within 3 minutes of arriving at the lake house and even before unloading the car I found myself playing catch on the front lawn with 7 year old William completely outfitted from head to toe in a full set of red catcher’s gear. Soon Ben and a few other neighborhood kids appeared and a good ol’ fashioned front yard ball game was underway. Never mind the plate glass front door not more that 15’ behind home plate.

The next day we all walked the two blocks to Mayberry’esk downtown Green Lake for breakfast at the local favorite diner. When we got home it was time to help Amy straighten up the house and garden from a long winter of absence. The girls cleaned off the rear deck and furniture while the boys trimmed the front tree and cleaned out the front flower bed to make room for fresh plantings. We’d head to the local nursery for a bouquet of perennials later in the week. Awww - The Rites of Spring. Next we headed to the garage. I don’t think I have ever detangled more fishing line, pumped up more little bicycle tires or fixed more derailed bike chains in my life. But hey that’s what uncles are for and it was all fun anyway.

The visit to Green Lake would not have been complete without “da boys” trip to the local bait to get worms with our elbows hanging out of the pickup truck windows, the cottonwood fuzz a flying in the air and Flo Rider cranked on the radio. Even with the shop owner’s professional recommendation for bait it wasn’t until after we left Green Lake that Ben was finally able to catch that huge base hanging around the dock just off the back yard. That afternoon I took the boys golfing at one of the nicer courses around. I hadn’t been on a course for a while so I just drove the cart and let them play – that is between wrestling matches on the green.

The next day we decided to go on a peaceful Rails to Trails ride in the rural countryside. Only in Wisconsin will you find the trail signs with mileage and directional arrows to the next watering hole demarked with a martini glass symbol. It was a great trail through rolling hills of freshly planted farm land, red barns and tall silos and everything beautiful until about a mile into the ride we suddenly emerged out of the shady canopy of a tree tunnel into a large grassy clearing on our right with square contraptions regularly spaced across a large field and small wooden decks maybe 150 feet further away but on the same alignment and spacing plus a few people milling around in vests!? The whole place oddly and suddenly resembling a skeet shooting range but with our bike path naturally cutting across the outfield and three targets blissfully rolling along. Luckily there were no weapons pointed directly at us at the time and nothing bad happened but we did pick up our pace a bit. I wonder if the thought of incompatible recreational land uses every crossed the local town planning commissions minds?

The last day we were there we watched Ben learn a 360 on his knee board as we took the ski boat across the lake to Richard’s parent’s house. We toured their incredible lake cottage, and AIA award winner, and took the sail boat out for a spin.