Posts Tagged ‘vacation home’
Now Where
Does it seem like I just got home from a week away to you? It sure seems like it to me but Cyndie planned a quick turnaround and scheduled us for an extended stay up at her family’s lake home in Hayward. Who am I to argue?
We spent a better part of the day yesterday preparing to be away and guiding our friends, Pam & John through the intricacies of living in our house and caring for Asher and the horses while we are gone. It soon became obvious there are a lot of details to our daily routine once we tried describing everything to them.
We left home later than planned and decided to stop for dinner on the way. Sitting in the booth, waiting for the food to arrive, it occurred to me that it was the third time in a row we had eaten out.
On Tuesday, we met Mike & Barb in Hastings for a meal at Missi’s Sip and Savor. I ordered the Walleye. It was luscious. The server brought me a birthday ice cream dessert.
On Wednesday, we met Paul & Beth in River Falls for a meal at Tattersall Distilling. I ordered Salmon. It was perfect. The server brought Paul and me a birthday ice cream sundae dessert treat.
Yesterday, we stopped at the Lake Magnor Restaurant in Clayton. I ordered the Wisconsin Burger (basically a California with cheese) basket with fries. It was delightful and just what I craved. We stopped later at a DQ where I got a Frozen Hot Chocolate.
The “cabin” looks great.
Since we were last here, painters have stained the new logs and put down new sealant on deck surfaces and stairs.
The place looks ready for another season or two against the elements.
Tonight, we plan to make it four nights in a row and visit Lost Land Lake Lodge for their famous Friday Fish Fry for dinner.
Since we are now settling in for a long stay at the lake, the question is no longer about where we are now, it should be about where will we be dining next.
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Aging Club
Wildwood Lodge Club started in 1966. The first generation is dwindling and of the six current families, only three are original. 
The club is in its 57th year but the buildings have been around since 1919. It was a fishing lodge when the eleven original Twin Cities families bought it and formed the club. The children of the first generation have taken over decision-making responsibilities, significantly increasing the number of minds that need to come to a consensus on management.
One of the biggest issues looming is the integrity of the main lodge building which has kitchen facilities and restaurant-style seating. The foundation is failing and the floor is rotting. The repair costs are unpredictable and hard to justify.
The ramifications tend to ripple all the way out to shaking the visions of what the future of the club might be like for the 3rd generation and beyond. With each generation, the added number of invested people complicates almost all decisions, particularly ones needing consensus for managing association business.
There are no easy answers and we can feel that. Gathering at the beach yesterday to remove the winter’s worth of leaf accumulation and arrange chairs, paddleboards, kayaks, a canoe, a small fishing boat, and several sailboats, talk informally wanders to the issues that aren’t easily resolved.
Thank goodness the precious people who are the extended family of Wildwood are the true core of what defines this club. There is no shortage of fun and laughter despite all the tough decisions looming. Dinner at each house is a delicious mix of wonderful stories and good food. Wandering next door for a visit is a guaranteed party. The north woods surrounding the lake is a vacation paradise.
Last night’s corn on the cob tasted like August. I don’t know where it was grown or how long ago it was picked, but someone did an amazing job of providing an end product that defied my sense of time and logistics.
My luck at our multiple card games has been nothing but bad, however, the fun quotient is as present as ever.
We don’t know what the future may bring, but just because the club is aging doesn’t mean it can’t last. There are plenty of possibilities and I am confident this group will eventually figure out a way to adapt and endure.
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Other Views
There used to be two pine trees above the pond fountain, but they were outgrowing the space available and not really thriving, so Cyndie’s parents had them cut down. In a moment of inspiration that is very familiar to me, they chose to leave a few feet of the stumps as pedestals. It’s a perfect spot for a couple of flowering plants.
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With the trees gone, I was able to capture a rare view of the “cabin” from the back side.
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I arrived to the house from that direction because I had been walking through some of the trillium carpeted woods that surround us. This forest is one that feels so perfect for me. There are other natural landscapes over the world that are spectacular, but these trees and all that comes with them resonate the most profoundly with my soul.
I must have spent a few past lives in places just like this. I know the smells and the sounds, the colors, the critters, and the majority of growing plants somewhere deep in the cells of my body.
There are many a days when I dream of what this area was really like when the first tribes of people were able to call this home, long before the time when logging on an epic scale ravaged the growth.
I’m particularly pleased with the “Wildwood” name this property holds. It couldn’t feel more appropriate.
The stroll that brought me through these trees had started down at the beach, below the front side of the house. Camera in hand, I walked onto the footbridge that crosses our little boat lagoon and looked out at the lake and up toward the lodge.
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These are both views I don’t usually capture. As leaves open, the sight lines will become more obscured. The views are no less spectacular, but the camera doesn’t come close to what the eyes perceive.
I will never take for granted how lucky I am to be able to visit this space in person, where I can see, smell, hear, and touch a natural environment to which my soul feels so emotionally attached.
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Relative Something 