Trip #6 - Part 4: Minocqua, WI or "My Golden Pond"

After leaving Niagara Fall we drove back to Syracuse and hopped some flights to Green Bay, WI. We arrived at about 10PM, went to the car rental booth, and found out that they had lost our reservation and didn't have any cars available. After finding our reservation, they agreed to give us a mini-van for the night, an upgrade, and a day off our rental if we came back in the morning. So, instead of driving to the cabin and getting in very late, we stayed the night and left early the next morning (probably for the best anyway). By lunch we had finished our grocery shopping and were sitting on the porch at the cabin. SWEET!!

This is my favorite place on earth. If you have ever seen the movie "On Golden Pond", you have seen my cabin. The original cabin was built in 1926 by my grandfather (my Dad was 3 yrs. old). It now belongs to me and 3 of my cousins. We decided to buy a swimming raft to put out further than the piers because the shadow hits the piers around 3PM and we wanted more sunshine time. Now 3 out of 4 of us were really for this swimming raft, but one of my cousins wives (#3) doesn't like the water and felt we should spend our money elsewhere and put up quite a fuss about it. The swimming raft has been christened "Sheila" (Andrew's brilliant idea).

We had beautiful weather. One really good thunderstorm during dinner one night. Dinner done, storm done, perfect! As you can see from my earlier post, we had fun with the chipmunks. Usually they are not that tame, but these little rascals were born in the bed in the guestroom. Surprise!! After being taken outside, mama made a new nest under the house, and helped herself to anything you left out on the counters in the kitchen. Being the big softies we all are, we never closed up the hole to the kitchen. These babies were born knowing humans and were very tame in no time. We probably fed them 5 lbs. of peanuts while we were there. They can hibernate till 2010. Now that they are all grown up it's time to close the kitchen permanently!

Beside our little chipmunk friends we had Mom & Dad and Baby Bald Eagle hanging out by the boathouse or on the trees on the island. Now I think this is really cool, but let me tell you when a baby bald eagle is hungry or upset it is SO NOISY!! He would just cry for hours at a time while Mom & Dad went hunting. He was getting pretty good at flying by the time we left, but his hunting skills weren't quite there.

We also had a Momma loon with her 4 babies that would come by the piers, under the boathouse, out to the island, and back to their nest everyday. So CUTE. For those who like to fish, the fishing was good. We saw plenty of folks catching fish. The canoeing was great. We took pulled Andrew around the lake with the big boat. And I missed having a sailboat. We had a couple of really good sailboat days (next thing to buy Sheila!). I read a lot (I will blog my books next) and most importantly we all relaxed a lot. The only bad part (beside having to come home) was Dennis getting stung by the paper wasps once the first day and 3 times the last day. Oh yea, Dennis bought a new toy. A John Deere saw. He had fun finding dead trees to cut down to put in the wood pile. For more pics, see my earlier blog.

All in all, I love "My Golden Pond"!!