I`m coming out of the closet. I admit it publicly and without shame: For years I`ve been spending my summer vacations at a small resort on a lake in Minnesota.
Someone very wise once said, ”There`s no such thing as a bad vacation.” True enough. But somewhere along the line a week in a cabin on a lake fell out of vogue; it became a ”bad vacation,” a poor man`s compromise with fiscal responsibility; it became not quite ”vacation” enough. You will not, after all, ever catch Jackie Onassis schlepping a folding chair down to a semi-public beach on a lake in the American Midwest.
Those of us who persist in such respites from work reveal how we spend our summer vacations almost apologetically:
”So, where`d you go on your vacation?”
”Oh, a resort on a lake up north.”
”What`d you do there?”
”A little fishing; a little swimming–that sort of thing.”
”Oh? Well, did they offer anything like sailing lessons, computer workshops, aerobics classes, photography classes?”
”Ahhh . . . no.”
”Gourmet restaurants nearby? Great shopping?”
”Not exactly.”
”Guided sightseeing tours? Museums?”
”Well . . . no.”
”Oh . . . I see . . . Well I`m sure you had a very nice time.”
You`re darn tootin`, I did! I may not impress anyone with tales of ecstasy over deep powder in the Rockies or scuba diving off Pago Pago or cutting a great deal on a suit in Hong Kong, but Silver Sands Resort on Lower Hay Lake on the Whitefish chain in Crow Wing County, Minnesota, will do just fine. And no apologies.
It`s the most incredibly simple vacation there is: You pile the family
–along with the contents of all your closets and your garage–into the car, drive all day, park at a cabin on a lake, stay for a week or so, and then reverse the process.
Invariably the return trip features a painful sunburn, dozens of mosquito bites and items forgotten and left at the cabin for future occupants. But that`s okay, because you need the extra room in the car for the souvenirs that somehow materialized: A sack of rocks collected on the beach, paper restaurant placemats, unmailed postcards, a bucket of clam shells, some pine cones and assorted Indian bric-a-brac made in the Orient. Everything is, of course, liberally sprinkled with sand, including everyone`s underwear.
We–my wife Anne; son Tom, 18; daughter Carrie, 13; and father-in-law Russ (a.k.a. ”Gramps”)–have been going to Silver Sands, cabin No. 4, the second week in August for several years and Anne began staying at a now-defunct resort on Lower Hay when she was 12 years old. And the same people are there every year: An aunt and cousins from Peoria; the Wiegardts and the Klemps from Cedar Falls, Iowa; the Larsens from Edina, a suburb of
Minneapolis; Nancy and ”Mac” MacNamara, owners of the resort; and kids ranging in age from 2 through teens.
Staying on the lake is one thing, getting there is another, and it begins two months before departure.
”Ya know the first thing I`m gonna do when we get there?” one of the kids will ask.
”Unload the car,” I growl as threateningly as I can, which elicits a groan and an indulgent, ”I mean after we unload the car.”
Overland by car with kids is a treat not to be missed. There we are, rolling through the lush pine encrusted hills of Wisconsin and past bucolic little farms, and they`re reading comic books. Once a hawk flew out of the forest beside the road directly in front of the car. It was clutching a rabbit in its talons, a sight rarely seen in suburbia and never seen in the city. It was nature untamed, primitive and majestic, visible for just an instant and then it was among the trees on the opposite side of the road.
”Did you see that, Carrie!” I shouted.
”Huh?” she replied, looking up casually from her comic book. She`d missed it completely in favor of the adventures of Archie and Veronica.
It can also be educational. One summer both kids had been periodically saying, for no apparent reason, ”Hikes, Geefer.” Over a period of several months I determined the expression was comparable to ”23 skidoo” of the `20s in that it had no real meaning. But taking advantage of Tom being trapped in the car with me, I asked him what ”Hikes, Geefer” meant.
”`Hikes` means no,” he explained. ”and `Geefer` is just a silly name for someone.”
Seemed simple enough. I`m all for the evolution of new words to enrich the language. So when the waitress in the restaurant asked me if I wanted dessert and I replied, ”Hikes, thank you,” I could not understand my childrens` merriment.
And then there`s the ”music.” My kids are into such groups as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Ozzy Osborne, The Who, Billy Joel and Madonna. It`s enough to cause a parent to regret ever having installed a cassette player in the car.
”Come on, Dad,” one will say, ”let me play this one tape.”
”Hikes, Geefer.”
”Just one side.”
”No.”
”I`ll play it real soft.”
To a teenager, rock music played ”softly” is two or three decibels beneath the pain threshold. But after subjecting them to 200 or 300 miles of Barry Manilow, Glenn Miller and Tchaikovsky, the temptation to relent and let them play one of their choices becomes powerful. But there is a way to avoid this guilt: You give them a boom box, a set of headphones and let them blow out their eardrums in peace.
The hazards of traveling by car aside, Silver Sands lay at the end of the road and that kept us going.
Perhaps I exaggerated a bit when I suggested the resort and the area was devoid of amenities. Silver Sands doesn`t exactly offer exercise classes, but Mac does, occasionally, let the kids help collect the garbage. And he does provide guided tours of a sort: ”You want to catch some northern? Go straight through the gap into Whitefish and troll over Frenchman`s bar, `bout a quarter mile off the big island.”
As for shopping . . . well, the second week in August is Krazy Daze in downtown Nisswa (pop. 1,011) and prices are slashed on virtually everything in town but gasoline. You won`t find the custom-made suits you find in Hong Kong, but then not even the fanciest shops of the Orient will ever carry cedar toothpick holders with ”Nisswa, Minn.” printed on them.
Gourmet dining? You can get a nice chicken dinner to go at the A-Frame restaurant on Minn. Hwy. 371 and Crow Wing County Hwy. 16. And for a sit-down meal Norway Ridge on Kimble Lake serves as fine a walleye pike dinner as you`re likely to find anywhere. And if you`re in the mood for a late-night snack, the ice cream store in Pine River (pop. 881) stays open until 11 p.m.
The Louvre may offer a peek at the ”Mona Lisa,” but in Brainerd, about 30 miles south of Lower Hay Lake, you can tour the Paul Bunyan Amusement Center, the heart of what might be most generously described as a miniature Wisconsin Dells, complete with helicopter rides, video games, cotton candy, go-karts, bumper boats and performing chickens.
People sometimes ask if we ever tire of going to the same place, doing basically the same things and seeing the same people year after year. The answer is no. To tire of it would be like getting tired of Christmas because Christmas, too, is basically the same year after year.
I know as certainly as I know I`m writing these words that this year we will be on the beach when the Klemps arrive. We`ll wave and then Dan Klemp will come over, plop into a chair and ask, ”So tell me everything that`s happened since last summer.” And things will go from there as though we hadn`t seen each other since last night, rather than last year.
To the kids, our cabin–two bedrooms, a bathroom with shower, and a kitchen/living room with a fold-away bed–is merely the building in which they eat, sleep and pause to change clothes. Shortly after arrival, they disappear –after the car is unloaded–and are seen only in passing for the remainder of the week. The ever-popular game, King of the Raft, keeps them occupied for an amazingly long period of time and is a great ice-breaker for kids new to the resort.
When they were younger they had a wonderful game that might have been called ”Make the Girls Scream.” The game was simplicity itself: A bunch of boys creep up to the window of a cabin in which girls have taken refuge and then they make ”scary” sounds. Girls scream in terror; boys laugh heartily; boys exit, stage left. The show was good enough for a one-week run, two performances a day.
We adults keep our fun to a more sophisticated level, like the time Dan Klemp and Gordy Wiegardt rented a sailboat from a resort across the lake. They made the mistake of leaving it beached and unguarded. We hid the mast on top of the fish-cleaning house and then sat back on the beach and watched them scouring the grounds, looking for it.
In addition to the regulars, others who have stayed at Silver Sands have turned out to be quite genial. The year before last there was a young couple on their honeymoon. That in itself was enough to inspire more than a few whispers among the teenagers. The honeymooners were doomed no matter what they did. Snickers followed them whether they stayed in their cabin or sat on the beach. But they were good sports, and one night they treated everyone to a piece of their wedding cake.
The days fly by on this lake in northern Minnesota. We fish; we swim; we loll around on the beach; we play golf; water ski; go for walks in the woods; and breathe air unsullied by urban pollution while walking under a thick canopy of stars and, sometimes, under the aurora borealis. The days are fuller than it might seem possible, and time passes too quickly. But I always reserve a time just for myself to be alone with the lake.
On the last day of our stay, just before sunset, I take the boat down to the south end of the lake near the mouth of the Hay Creek. As I near the shore I cut the outboard motor and momentum carries me into the reeds. Silence descends and all that is heard is the vagrant sounds of evening falling over the lake.
A gentle breeze rustles the trees, waves lap the shore and my boat, crows squawk in the tree tops and far off in the distance two loons call to each other, signaling the end of another day. As much a part of these sounds is the steady whir and clicking of my reel as I cast a small spoon into the reeds, not really caring whether a fish strikes it or not.
Down the shore a dog barks and leaps, trying to get at the stick in a young boy`s hand. The boy hurls the stick far out into the water and the dog gallops after it, throwing himself into the water with a resounding splash that carries to my ears across the lake with crystal clarity. The stick retrieved, the dog puts it in the boy`s hand and shakes the water from his fur, surrounding himself in a halo of droplets that glitter in the waning light. He resumes barking and leaping, and the game is repeated.
Closer at hand, a boy about 5 years old and wearing a bright orange life vest that is almost as big as he, carries a fishing pole to the end of a private dock. He is leading an old man, bent with age, by the hand. The man baits the boy`s hook and sits on a lawn chair while the boy plops the line in the water and stares intently at the bobber. He hasn`t long to wait–no one ever does when fishing for bluegill off a dock. He squeals with excitement as he pulls the tiny fish from the water and the old man pats him on the back and tells him what a mighty fisherman he is.
One generation has given birth to another generation of fishermen.
These are the sights, the smells and the sounds of the lake that I savor on my last evening at Silver Sands. They will have to hold me for another year.
Southern seas have their appeal, especially in winter; nothing can compare with the Old World charm and history of Europe, the Orient, Africa, South America; and none can deny the majestic beauty of a snow-capped mountain or a vast painted desert–all the places of the world that draw swarms of tourists. But for simple pleasures and family warmth nothing tops a little cabin on a lake. . .and no apologies.
