Category: Nature

Following a visiting hiatus related to a certain broken ankle incident…

Crunch Time

…we returned to the cottage this year. The building itself aside, the general area has taken on a new vibe. The “you can’t go home again” phrase is applicable here. The combination of time and place with its distinct parameters is simply now non-existent. There are no longer cellular dead zones. Getaway nooks on the lake have been replaced with AirBnBs and permanent residences whose gauche edifices offend the very essence of what a small lake neighborhood in Wisconsin should be, and once was. Family-owned and operated supper clubs still exist, but are losing ground to the invasion of chain restaurants. The area isn’t becoming gentrified, but rather being ground slowly into sameness by the inevitable march of investment capitalism. The cottage resists the onslaught for the time being, though as a result it now also exists out of time – the present one. It has a future, but it will be vastly different from the memories of Liz’s childhood.

However, that’s not to say such a fate is all necessarily bad. I have great hopes for its future, even if its present state is a work in progress. It needs more manpower, but I myself am too far away to regularly contribute, and when I am there I hesitate to make any executive decisions out of fear that I lack the background knowledge to do so safely, e.g. the electrical.

Oh well. I’ll do what I can. This year was pulling Romex and ductwork through the ceiling.

Sadly, events conspired against enjoying any outdoor activities. Even if the stairs to the waterfront were completed to allow safe transit, which they aren’t yet (that’s my sister-in-law’s project), the heat index for the week hit triple-digits. And even if I were willing to tolerate that level of discomfort, fish wouldn’t be biting in those conditions either. So I paid the Wisconsin DNR $45 for nothing. You’re welcome, Wisconsin.

Then Canada started burning again.

I had never before been under “Hazardous” AQI conditions. I also haven’t been near an erupting volcano. I imagine the experiences are similar, with the exception that Wisconsin’s flatness precludes any incidences of pyroclastic flows. We didn’t auto-ignite and get buried under ash for future archaeologists to discover with plaster molds, but that fate would have seemed kind compared to the omnipresent suffocation we endured.

But any day not working beats…any day working. There were some highlights. Relaxing, some sightseeing:

To try a new place, the girls decided on Sky Club. The claim of this place, which I found to be an odd bragging point posted on the signage, was that they had the first salad bar. Even if that were true, I would still be indifferent because it’s a frigging salad bar. Whenever a restaurant offers a salad bar, I decline, because I didn’t go out to eat to have someone send me off to a counter with chopped lettuce next to a bowl of ranch on ice and make me mix the two myself. It’s very similar to my disdain for breakfast restaurants: 3000% markup on eggs and pancakes (water, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, butter, syrup). But, when in Rome, right? Or Wisconsin, rather.

In terms of salad bars, it wasn’t too bad. Different greens mixes, their own greasy bacon dressing for the spinach, cheese sauce (which didn’t make much sense aside from it being Wisconsin), and a quivering gelatinous bunt-pan mold of unknown ingredients. The latter itself made the experience worthwhile, just for the novelty. It turned out to be a quiche with chicken organs. It certainly gave us a good laugh. But even by my standards…why?

It would also turn out that the salad bar claim was true. Or rather, claimed to be true and generally accepted by the foodie community to be at least grounded in truth. How about that? I have now eaten at the first salad bar.

My stroganoff was serviceable.

Then there was a trivia night at some other random place. We did reasonable. I hate sports.

And there were deer, for which every driver should watch out for. The deer we passed were noticeably more street-wise than their Ohio counterparts, I’ll note. One in particular repeatedly looked both ways before crossing. Apparently it had been paying attention in gradeschool. It probably knows about stranger danger too.

And they’d have to be street-wise when albino! We have albino squirrels in Ohio and they don’t last long, and there were several deer up there still kickin’.

Wisconsin just didn’t seem to like us this year. And the sky agreed, as we passed out of smoke and into Illinois’ clear air, with the universal symbol of positivity:

But Wisconsin didn’t stop there. As a lingering reminder that we weren’t welcome there, the night we got home Liz suffered an allergic reaction to the air and had to spend the night in the ER.

There’s good family up there, but without an emotional attachment to the place itself, it’s only a symbol now. And having been denied the outdoor activities that I’d normally partake in, combined with the kid’s increasing reluctance for any activities with her parents, the primary assets of the cottage’s location were, for me at least, rendered moot. Once the kid leaves home, it may have renewed purpose for Liz and I, but that’s down the road and, unfortunately, an unknown.

A bit of a melancholic conclusion, I suppose.

–Simon