We really enjoy the Northwoods. Especially when we end up lakeside on an undeveloped lake with natural shoreline. We watch as a bald eagle takes flight like he’s striding across the lake, makes a slight dip into the surface and flaps off with its dinner.
We’re mesmerized as clouds careen by,
casting a pink reflection, moving like a saber across swaths of the darker water.
Nesting loons provide a
sing-song-along all week and an equally entertaining visual display of feeding
a young one. Diving, popping up, handing off a small fish into a waiting bill.
As we sit shoreline at our waterfront campsite watching, they work the same
pattern nightly of feeding cross-lake. Always their calls please and plead:
this is totally the stuff you are made to remember. Your mind’s circuits will
recall their song as your measurement of the immense pleasure of this trip.
The lake even sports a man made loon nest.
Was it fancy or with hookups? Only
in respect to our huge quarter-acre level site, with the most stunning old
growth pines we’ve yet to see in Wisconsin. Had for half price on our National
Park’s Pass, it costs a mere $52.50 for a week of total, nature-driven bliss.
We develop a routine which involves sitting in lakeside conversations, nightly
cocktail hour and lots of outdoor cooking, voracious reading, fishing and most
fun, kayaking. It is so unbelievably quiet I can’t bear to think of leaving.
The good news is that we can
return again soon and as the year moves on it should become ever more vacant,
although it never totally fills. It has 45 sites, half of which are reservable.
A lot of campers are tenters, young with kids and kayaks, and will shortly
return to school (maybe).
In addition to the main lake,
there are two others, one of which is about the same size with a sandy swimming
beach. The day we decide to kayak it, we are the only ones on the entire lake
excepting for the loons. In a state with very little public lands, it made us
feel wild and free and slightly incredulous.
After crossing the main lake, we
tie off the kayaks and hike to the other, small lake, which has a raised boardwalk
as its only means of entry because the shoreline is entirely matted bog; spongy
to step on, perilous to the extreme to try and traverse. The plants here are
other-worldly, including some that are carnivorous.
It’s a bit of a trek to drive to
this area on back roads through many small towns and villages, or we’d be going
there much more I’m sure. We’re much more prepared for an easier ride next time—Marc
just installed air bags to help the suspension on the Chevy.
