Posts Tagged ‘holiday weekend’
Pickling Around
Opting to remain at rest since my body was already at rest when yesterday’s post-4th-of-July pickleball tournament was held, I wandered down to observe as a spectator after the competition was already underway.
They achieved a good number of participants who did an impressive job of keeping games close, providing plenty of entertainment for the gathered crowd, made up mostly of other players waiting for their next game.
After I’d witnessed at least one game by most of the teams, I made my way back to the house by way of the beach, where I paused to hang for a bit while Cyndie, Elysa, and Ande were floating on or soaking in the lake. After so many days away from home, I’m finally getting the hang of doing nothing without needing to convince myself I can get away with it.
In fact, it feels a little daunting to contemplate revving my energy up again to tackle all the projects that will be awaiting me back at Wintervale. We expect to be on the road before noon today for the drive south to Pierce County, where we will find the hay field has been cut and baled, and the lawn grass about two weeks tall.
Yesterday afternoon, I took on a challenge I’ve been skipping over for a long time. I keep an old floor pump for inflating bike tires up at the lake place, ever since I bought a nicer one to replace it at home. The thing is, the old one leaks air on every stroke. One of the reasons I haven’t dealt with it is that I couldn’t easily deduce where the problem was, nor how to get the lower pieces apart to get a look at what was wrong.
Finally, yesterday I was prepared to give it a go. First off, I did some research to see if I could find an exploded view or service information on this old model. I could not. I surfed through a few YouTube videos, but didn’t find any answers there. I did find some replacement parts that looked identical to my model, but nothing that revealed how it came apart.
I tried pulling with increasing force, but wasn’t making any progress. Then, I had a lightbulb moment of insight. One of the replacement parts I had seen included a hose. I searched for that image again and zoomed in. The end of the tubing had a threaded fitting on it. That was the secret. I needed to find a pliers because the rubber boot over the mating part did not budge against my finger strength. Knowing it should turn allowed me to grab it using pliers with much more confidence.
It came loose easily. All the subsequent connections unthreaded with ease as well. The broken gasket at the bottom junction became glaringly obvious.
I felt pride in having used my mechanical sense and a good dose of patience to work out the problem without breaking something in the process. It just took a little pickling around with the parts before I eventually reached the desired result.
I’m taking the ripped gasket home with me to see if I can find a suitable replacement. If not, it will be time to make one myself, probably by cutting up a discarded inner tube. Wish me luck.
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Leaving Us
It’s Tuesday after Labor Day and plenty of fall activities that haven’t already kicked off will be starting today. Our guests left us yesterday for the next leg of their journey in a vehicle that looked to be packed with everything a college freshman would need to get started.
The Birgens awoke in the morning to the news that the Kenyan Supreme Court has ruled that the candidate, William Ruto, was properly elected President in the 2022 general election. One less thing to be concerned about for them at a time their oldest son is starting a new job and the youngest is starting college.
I find myself thinking about how nice it is to be well beyond the years of taking kids to their first year of college. Feels similar to when I began to appreciate getting past the years when September meant “back to school” during the K-12 phase of our kids’ lives.
The few connotations September holds for me now are the onset of fall colors, Cyndie’s and my anniversary (41 years!), Julian’s birthday, and the start of MN Vikings football –despite my best efforts to stop caring about anything having to do with the modern-day NFL. Nothing about getting prepared for school.
I have already noticed the return of school bus traffic on our road at home twice a day, but the impact from that on my life is negligible.
I tip my hat to all of you who have school-age children starting a new bus and/or classroom experience today.
My time with access to television coverage of the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament is ending today as we leave the lake place and return home.
For some reason –probably related to wanting to witness Serena Williams make one last attempt for a major victory at the end of her illustrious career– I was inspired to watch as many live matches as I could this year. I was lucky to have captured a few dramatic matchups that were really exciting and very competitive.
A couple of them were almost as exciting as the end of the Florida State vs. LSU college football game I stumbled upon Sunday night during a break in the tennis.
It’s probably a good thing we are leaving the lake place and all the cable sports channels I have access to here so I can take a break from spectator sports and get outside and give this gorgeous September weather the proper respect it deserves.
It’s my favorite time of year, right up there with my other favorite, winter!
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Last Hurrah
Taking full advantage of immersing ourselves in the last Sunday of the summer season up at the lake, we hiked, swam, boated, feasted, visited, and began putting away water toys. Hosting members of Friswold’s adopted family, the Birgens, we had added reasons to wander the grounds and socialize with fellow “Wildwooders.” Wildwoodites? Member clans of the incredible Wildwood Lodge Club (WWLC).
The holiday weekend inspired an additional reason to gather members, so Cyndie and her mom invited everyone to our place for a 5 o’clock cocktail party with socializing around the fire. With flashback memories of the way it was done when Cyndie was a kid up here, that fire was then used to cook burgers for our dinner.
In another throwback to a bygone era, I got out my little travel guitar and “strumgled” [strummed and struggled] a few songs from the cobwebs of my fading memory. It was sufficient to punctuate the culmination of a fabulous day at the lake honoring the last events of summer.
Today, the Birgens will head out on the last leg of their journey, taking their youngest, Jonathon, to his first year of college. Cyndie, her mom, and I will linger one more night and head home tomorrow.
In the wee hours before dawn this morning, our gentle slumber was serenaded by the wistful echoing calls of an owl in the woods outside our window. It truly feels like we are experiencing summer’s last hurrah.
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Edges Covered
With little in the way of fanfare, yesterday we raked up gravel over the last of the exposed asphalt edges of our new driveway. By that point in the exercise, I had lost much of my ability to care about the level of perfection we were achieving compared to when we first started. It’s going to be good enough for all intents and purposes.
The next phase of the driveway finishing project involves backfilling some of the steeper edges with dirt or composted manure but that detail is not as essential. It won’t worry me if we don’t get that all done prior to the arrival of the snow season.
We did make a point of celebrating the accomplishment a little later in the day with a leisurely game of CrossCrib out on our deck. A nod to the vacation-mode feeling of being up at the lake, it occurred to me we have the same game board at home and a deck that offers everything except a view of a lake. We can play at home just as well as up at Wildwood.
We tend to forget sometimes, what with all the landscape and animals vying for our time and attention. A card game in the middle of a beautiful afternoon can be a healthy diversion.
Since today is the Friday of a holiday weekend, we will be traveling north to the lake place again, leaving the dog behind to be cared for by our house and animal sitter, Grace.
This is a routine that has served us well this summer. Labor Day weekend is traditionally the last gasp of summer activities up at the lake. That doesn’t mean we will stop making the trek up there, though. A few trees were already showing signs of fall color on the drive home last weekend. That spectacle provides plenty of incentive to get back up to the lake after Labor Day.
First things first. We have a long weekend to enjoy some very promising-looking weather predicted for the northland.
It will be even nicer knowing the edges of the new asphalt driveway at home are now completely covered with a gravel shoulder.
Huzzah!
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Spectacularly Pleasant
We were blessed with a fabulous summer-weather day for our Wildwood Lodge Club annual Fourth of July games. Things started a little slow, with a pickup wiffleball game occupying some of us, while the rest of the folks made their way to the lodge.
The flag was raised to a recorded version of our National Anthem.
Shoes were kicked.
Also, water balloons were tossed (thrown), wet sponges were passed, bodies were spun, and watermelon was handlessly gobbled. Yes, it gets messy.
Greased watermelons were then wrestled toward invisible goal lines.
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Finally, a feast was shared in the lodge.
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After dinner, I played a little guitar around the fire to cap off a spectacular day of events.
The most difficult part of this precious weekend is facing the return to reality that happens today. We drive home this afternoon in a line of holiday traffic to resume our normal weekday duties.
I suppose the plus side of that is, it tends to make days like these all the more special that we get to experience them.
This year will go down as a particularly precious Fourth of July weekend enjoying summer games up at Wildwood with all the families present.
I look forward to dwelling on it for as long as circumstances will allow.
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Starting Early
Cyndie and I left for the lake after I got home from work yesterday. We had no idea that Wednesday night the 3rd of July would be the time when towns would hold their fireworks shows in Wisconsin.
It seemed to me that traffic was flowing fairly well for the night before a holiday that was providing a 4-day weekend for most folks. Maybe the people who were going to be out of town had already left. We only ran into two backups.
The first one was at a roundabout, of all places. The very system that was created to minimize congestion at an intersection was not achieving its potential when we arrived. There was no zipper merging happening because someone in our lane was intent on waiting until no other cars were anywhere in sight before executing their right turn.
The second backup happened as we approached Shell Lake. Several hours before darkness was to arrive, officials had already closed Hwy 63 and were detouring traffic through town to create a safe zone for the fireworks show. We didn’t wait around to see the spectacle. It seemed a day early to us, but maybe it had something to do with the holiday falling on a Thursday.
We stopped for dinner at a local diner/gas station that won our hearts after our first visit there last year. In this case, the second time wasn’t the charm. It seemed so dang impressive the first time we ate there. Last night, our experience was surprisingly underwhelming.
It’s all relative, I tell ya.
Makes me want to try seeing things with the joy and wonder of the first time, regardless of how familiar it may have become. I’ll have a good chance to practice this over the next few days. We are up at Wildwood for the annual 4th of July festivities, including the long tradition of games between the “bats” and “mice” teams.
Water balloon toss; shoe kick; watermelon eating contests; relay racing.
We’ve been through this routine so many times, it is easy for me to become jaded over it. When it was still fresh to me and I was much younger, I was so moved by the experience that I wrote a song about it. The excitement has faded as I have aged.
This year I have a new goal to look at the weekend with the wonder I felt the first few times I came up here and to send a lot of love to all who show up to participate. What’s the worst that could happen? I might have as much fun as the year I wrote that song.
Go, team, go!
Happy US Independence Day everyone!
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Precious Getaway
We are so lucky to have people who are willing and able to take care of our animals for enough time to allow us to get away to the lake place every so often. It is our Memorial holiday weekend in the U.S. and for the second time in three weeks, we are again up at the lake place.
This time, we are without Delilah. She stayed home to be with our very capable recent college graduate, McKenna. Two of Cyndie’s brothers are up here with kids, and her parents as well. We got the weekend off to a very festive start by venturing out to the Lost Land Lake Lodge for the Friday night fish fry.
The place was hopping and our server was a real charm. Food was perfect in every way and the family banter was wonderfully entertaining. It was almost enough to entirely purge the lingering mental distractions of the day-job, where business has gotten so good (busy) it’s getting annoying.
Before the night was over, I had already lost two completely different card games. It didn’t bother me one bit. The precious ambiance was all the victory I needed for putting me in my happiest of places.
A precious getaway is an amazingly priceless luxury. This one is certainly more than I deserve.
As it fills my cup to overflowing, I will send the extra love out to you and the world to distribute and amplify all that is good.
It’s the least one can do for a world that too often seems out of our reach to help.
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Pure Joy
Even though there was much in the way of work being done on the main day of ‘Work Weekend,’ at the lake place we call Wildwood, there was no shortage of fun in the endeavors of the day.
After toiling away on the beach to reclaim the area from the unending processes of Mother Nature to take over our sandy little oasis, I pitched in, literally, to help others in improving the landscape in front of the lodge. The grass grows really well in the spaces near the building where it isn’t wanted, and I assisted with digging it up using a garden fork that looked like a very close relative of the pitch fork that has become one of my primary tools at home. A beautiful array of perennials were planted into the newly turned soil.
Throughout the tasks, conversations blossomed in an annual renewing of connection with members of the community who scatter to their city lives for most of the winter.
Taking a pause from the work, I stopped back to the house where Cyndie was resting her hip and reading a book. I sat with her for a bit, until I noticed she had nodded off into a nap. Figuring I might as well go get my computer to take advantage of the time, I climbed the stairs to our room, finding my laptop beside the great big bed. Since she was already asleep, I figured I didn’t need to take it back downstairs to be in her proximity, and so laid on the bed to check in with the world.
I awoke in a slobbery mess of drool, after a most delicious unplanned nap of my own.
Hearing the words, “soccer game,” I descended the stairs to rejoin humanity and rediscovered how much joy I get from playing the beautiful game. I think it started as 4-v-4, but soon grew to include more people than the space actually allows. Maybe that is why the decision gets made that we won’t use borders, and play continues regardless the fact the ball is within the jungle gym play area, around the SUV parked on the driveway, or even behind the goals, like a game of hockey.
Slowly, in a reverse of how the numbers swelled to the maximum, players wander off to other pursuits, often without saying a thing. After battling situations that feel a lot like playing short-handed in a game of hockey, the game is paused and a player volunteers to switch so play can resume with reasonable balance. In the end, it came down to me facing one last challenge from 6-year-old nephew, Beck, for some 1-v-1.
He said, “Go over to your goal.”
“No, that’s an awful long way away. Let’s just play a small game right here,” I encouraged.
He kicked the ball around me and headed the length of the field to ‘my goal.’ What could I do? I chased after him to protect my goal. He was a tenacious foe and I soon realized he would not quit until he succeeded in getting that ball in the net. I was tired and wanted to be done, so I provided an opportunity. He missed. The ball rolled wide. A few near-misses later, the ball found the target and he was satisfied. Game over.
Pure joy.
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Memorable Weekend
Returning to work can really increase the feelings of longing for the pleasures recently enjoyed over a holiday weekend. Since I had Monday off, that made yesterday my first day back after the long break. Yikes, what a contrast. The day-job doesn’t have nearly the appeal of a long weekend at the lake place.
What a great time we had this year, with our annual batch of games, followed by dinner at the lodge and fireworks shot from the beach after dark.
I was in something of a hurry to get home and pick up where we left off with projects at Wintervale, but after arriving back to chores, the allure of the lake just became more enticing. Add to that, a dose of the day-job, and thoughts of returning to the lake become all-encompassing.
It says a lot when people in a community like that influence you so deeply, after just a brief visit, that all you can think about is finding a way to return to be with them again.
It’s too bad I don’t have a job that involves hanging out with friends and family for days on end. I think I would be well-suited for a position like that.
Relative Something 