Labor Day Weekend, 2013: Girls and Schneiders and Kayaks

This year, for various reasons, none of our other kids were able to come for the weekend but Jonna and her tribe saved the day (weekend)!

The girls came up late Thursday night. Friday we rode out a bit of a storm (see previous post) but spent a lovely, clear evening on the beach with John and Sharon after dinner at Rosa's.

Jonna proved she was up to the challenge of photo-bombing family photos, a skill Adam mastered long ago.

I brought the ice cream ball along to the beach so we could all participate in the creation and enjoy the scrumptiousness of homemade ice cream. Although not all were enthusiastic about taking their turns at shaking, the resulting product was delicious indeed. The thing is pretty dang heavy, I'll say that.

While I was up at the cottage stirring the ice cream, John brought out a pack of BIG sparklers for the girls to play with. It's always fun to see the pure enjoyment on HIS face when the fireworks come out. The first time he and Sharon visited us on Black Lake, he brought along some fireworks (not strictly legal at that time), and once it was sufficiently dark, set them off on the end of the dock. By that time of night he was smoking a cigar, and as he walked out on the dock to start the show, he had it clenched in his grinning teeth, in the manner of Franklin Roosevelt. The man has a mischievous streak a mile wide.

With very few artificial lights to dim the sky, it was dark and full of stars. We all stood in amazement at the black, light-speckled ceiling, silence broken only by exclamations of wonder. I saw the longest shooting star I've ever seen, and Melissa saw it, too. The photo left isn't mine, but is the best I could find to represent the one we saw.

As we sat enjoying the night sky (and our ice cream), John exclaimed and pointed toward the horizon. "Northern Lights!" he said.

I grabbed another Internet photo to represent what we saw. Although there was no purple in our view, it was the same general pattern as above--smears of green light shooting up from the horizon and flashing gently as we watched. John wrote about it in his blog a couple days later.

What a bloody magical evening.

Seeking to re-enact accomplishments from their kayak trip two weeks earlier, the girls strapped on iPhones and set out for another beautiful trip on the lake. I was only too proud to have provided the unifying fashion theme: bandanas.

Jonna takes the little L.L. Bean kayak, Melissa the Pungo 14, and Shaina the Pungo 12. Melissa takes very good care of my best paddle, the super light one that Pa picked out to go with the third kayak he and Mom provided for our cottage boatyard.

A final shot from the weekend--one of my apricot daylilies in full bloom in Wellington Garden.

Storm's a comin'

One of the best things about the location of our cottage is its placement at the north end of the lake. This puts us in position to see both sunrises and sunsets, and all possible phases of the moon.

But the real bonus for Ken is the ability to watch storms coming across the lake. He can spot them long before they get to us, and watch them as they gather steam or dissipate over the lake.

He does know enough to come in out of the rain, but just barely.

Stunning.

Sue & Steve & Ron & Jane

It's been two years since Sue and Steve visited us here at the cottage. We sure were glad to see them! They arrived on Sunday, greeted by a traditional parking sign created by Ken. Even though they are "big lake" people now, they have inland lakes in their blood (rented on Mullett and owned on Macatawa) so they really enjoy the Black Lake experience.

Hugs all 'round.

We love laughing together

Sue and Steve have their own Hack-Ma-Tack memories--including visits with us--so it was a natural spot for a nice evening out for the four of us.

Tuesday the parking sign got swapped out for our next arrivals--Ron and Jane. Luckily, we were able to manage a day overlap in their visits. We tried--persistently but unsuccessfully--to get the Homies to stay another day or so, but they headed back home on Wednesday.

Ron and Jane had to leave Thursday morning. We hope next year they can stay a bit longer, especially now that Ron is retired!

Sue and Jane

Paging Dr. Howard, Dr. Oberon, Dr. Howard...

Ron demonstrates his fine Corn Hole form

Steve, me, Sue & Ron

Looks like Ron just made one of his famous remarks

Identical Cousins

As great as it is to have all our kids at the cottage, there is something wonderful about smaller, more intimate visits as well. Jonna and Melissa drove up on Friday (August 16) and spent the weekend with Ken and me. Highlights:

Dinner at the Bluffs. Note that Melissa did not stop squeezing lime into her Corona for the snapshot. We have our priorities, after all.

The girls took a nice long kayak ride, tracking their performance with an app on their iPhones.

Rock-hounding at Schneiders

This was the first time Melissa and Jonna had ever been to John and Sharon's place. John and Sharon weren't there, but with their permission we had a lovely time collecting rocks along the shoreline.

We felt especially honored to be on the beach today, because it was the anniversary of Jessica Schneider's death. I walked up the beach and sat for a while in quiet, meditating on the sacredness of this place and how lucky I felt to be there with my two girls.

Melissa found the most amazing stone of the day (perhaps of the summer!): half quartz, half basalt. She collected a number of fossils for sons Harrison and Lennon, and one way or the other ended up with a number of stones that looked like a bit like turds. She really knows how to please her boys.

Hijinks at Pier 33

Jonna and Melissa are first cousins, born three days apart in 1975. They have so many inside jokes it's sometimes hard to keep up. Often we just sit and listen to them laugh, tease each other, and comment on the foibles of others. They are masters of the coined phrase, and have many pet names for each other. I introduced them to the concept of "identical cousins," from the old Patty Duke show. They took to it immediately and used it as an excuse for all manner of silly/similar tastes, preferences, and behaviors. Listening to them order food at a restaurant--finishing each others' sentences and speaking in unison--is both funny and alarming.

"Still they're cousins....identical cousins, and you'll find, they laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike...you could lose your mind, when cousins....are two of a kind!"

Dr. Oberon's birthday at the Wallaces'

A random comment about Ken's impending birthday while drinking at the Dirty Duck with Chet and Kathy Wallace garnered us an invitation to celebrate the day at their lovely house on Long Lake. As good as her B&B-influenced word, Kathy arranged a lovely, easy-going evening in Ken's honor with lots of food, silly hats, and some of our favorite guests (Ross, Paula, Wally, and Will from the Lodge). We went out for a pontoon ride, which ended with a thunderstorm chaser, and a dined on a selection of grilled meats courtesy of Chef Chet (say that 3 times fast). Red Velvet cake was the finishing touch. The evening produced one classic video (available for private viewings) of Ken and Paula in a laughing fit. Alcohol was involved.

With Chet

With Paula

With Kathy

With Will

With Ross

With Wally

Dutkowski Part IV

The Dutkowskis were in Petoskey for a couple days and drove over to kick around Black Lake for the afternoon. We took a pontoon ride, played Corn Hole, and visited one of our favorite dives...er....restaurants.

Sighting the "old" cottage on Mullett Lake

On the front porch of the cottage on Mullett Lake (Mike, age 10; Joe and Adam, age 6)

Our family's love affair with inland lakes started long ago on Mullett Lake. By the time Ken married me, he had been renting the Panella cottage (on Mullett Lake Road, southeast side of the lake) with his two boys for three years. After we were married in 1988, we continued the tradition with our three boys every year through the summer of 2001. There are many great stories to be told about those years, and we have albums full of photos of the boys, Jonna, and many visitors including Grandma and Grandpa Woodruff.

While on our Inland Waterway trip with the Schneiders, we motored up close to the southeast edge of the lake to see if we could spot the old place. And when I say "old," I mean the site of the old place, now occupied by a decidedly un-quaint new home.

Just before the last year we rented the place, the Panella's tore down their little red cabin and built a shiny new updated home (in preparation for retirement, no doubt). That proved to be the end of our Mullett Lake tradition. With the boys getting older and summer together-time getting scarcer, the loss of the old, familiar cottage was the last straw.

In 2001, we drove up to the cottage separately for some reason--Joe and Adam with me and Ken later. The boys and I had a bit of time to process our own disorientation with the strange and sterile new home by the time Ken arrived. He got out of his car, took one look at the two story garage and home where our cozy red cabin used to stand and said, "Fuck."

That was the last year we rented on Mullett Lake. We attempted to establish a new tradition of renting, but weren't able to find a suitable place or time. (The story of our two stays on Torch Lake is for another time.) So we drifted along with good intentions but without a family gathering place for several years.

Then in 2007, that fateful email from Sharon Emery arrived in my inbox, with pictures of the lake lot on the lane where they owned property. That email led to my PowerPoint pitching the idea to Ken, which led to our trips up north to look at property, which led (in rather short order) to our purchase of the cottage on Black Lake.

But I digress.

Back to the Inland Waterway excursion. We did find the Panella cottage, and although the house stirred no memories, the lakefront, the bench, the bifurcated birch tree, and the dock (upon which our Black Lake dock is based) were still as we remembered.

The Panella cottage as seen from the lake on August 8, 2013

Inland Waterway with Schneiders

After months of anticipation, the day arrived for our trip down the Inland Waterway with John and Sharon. We met them at the K-Mart, left our car there, and drove with them to the new marina on the south end of Cheboygan.

The weather was ideal - sunny but not too hot. From the marina we cruised the Cheboygan River into Mullett Lake and sped across Mullett to the Indian River. The trip down the Indian River is at no-wake speed, so we had plenty of time to enjoy the wildlife and scenery on the flat, marshy expanse of the river that flows under I-75. Of course there are plenty of cottages, too, along many sections of the rivers and lakes--from humble cabins to crowded party pads to grand old estates and everything in between. On Burt Lake we stopped for lunch and took a swim, then back on board for the reverse trip. We spent about ten hours on the water and were pretty well pooped by the end of the day.

I took lots of photos--these are just a few to give an idea of the things we saw along the way.

Second mate Kenny assisting first mate Sharon with the canopy

Captain Schneider

The Cheboygan River downstream of the marina

Entering Mullett Lake

The Pontoon Captain confers with the Speedboat Captain

The loons in the Indian River were quite blase about the boat traffic

First mate/navigator Sharon points the way

Entering Burt Lake

This shot is fairly typical of the more populated areas along the route

Approaching the Hack-Ma-Tack

Loading the boat onto the trailer at the marina ramp

Tired but happy at the end of ten hours on the water. Perfect day.