"Water, Leaves, and Colors, Oh My!"

Well, I'm back in Milwaukee. My weekend up in the forested beauty of Central Wisconsin was breathtaking. The cabin was rustic and inviting; the lake was cold and numbing, and the Autumn leaves were rich with abundant color. God really knows how to paint nature, and this past weekend was a real Masterpiece!

On Friday, Scott and I picked up Adam (Scott's younger brother) from his engineering college here in Milwaukee, and the three of us drove northwest to a small community located on a string of five lakes -- the village of Mount Morris. To be honest, "village" is a bit of an overstatement. The whole community is really just an unincorporated settlement consisting of an old Lutheran church, a mill-turned-coffeeshop, a roadside motel, an old schoolhouse-turned-townhall, a mostly abandoned Lutheran summer camp (except for the chapel which still holds services in summer), a small winter ski resort on Mount Morris (the local mountain), and a number of privately owned cabins and cottages (mostly occupied in summer). All this in a heavily forested area of pine, oak, and maple trees. Very secluded, yet jaw-droppingly beautiful!

When the three of us guys got to "Laurentia", the rustic cabin owned by Scott and Adam's extended family, it was long after dark. Other than a few occupied cottages here and there, we were the only people around. The pure silence of the night up there was awe-inspiring... no birds, no civilization, no rustling leaves. Just pure undisturbed stillness.

Lights were minimal too, and while it had been raining earlier in the day, and clouds remained overhead (blocking any view of the stars), a few artificial lights pierced the night here and there. A house/cottage across the lake twinkled in reflection upon the glass surface of the water. Even the simple lights from Laurentia broke the utter blackness of the area. And, as some of you know, I LOVE the effect and contrast of light and dark... so *this* captured my attention! Not even art can accurately recreate beauty like this. Only God can. And this was absolutely gorgeous -- and deeply thought-provoking.

That night, us three guys mostly sat around the cottage and talked, listened to music, and talked some more. Adam is in OCS -- "Officer Candidate School" for the Marines, so a lot of the conversation revolved around his training stories, but we also talked women, life, etc -- guy stuff. It was a great few hours of male bonding, and a wonderful way for three friends to hang out and relax away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

Eventually, though, it came time for bed, and the three us retired for the night.

In the morning, the darkness was replaced with clear skies, sun, and the sounds of local wildlife and rustling trees overhead. This was the day in which we would fulfill our main reason for being up at Laurentia -- to remove the dock from the lake before the water got too cold and froze in winter.

We had breakfast, and while we waited for the warmest part of the day to work in the lake, we set to work raking the hearty blanket of leaves and pine needles that covered the ground. By the time we would finish this task, at least twenty large trash bags would end up stacked like a pyramid in the back "yard". Next weekend they'll be carted away by the next people up at the cottage.

After lunch, we stripped down to our swim trunks, and waded into the lake, ready to disassemble and remove the wooden and aluminum dock. And let me tell you, even in the warm high 60-degree mid-afternoon, the water was still quite COLD! Thankfully, the deepest the dock went was only chest-high. It was cold work, but eventually bearable.

We removed the wooden planks of the dock, floated them to shore, stacked them up, and then went to work disassembling the aluminum support structure. The crossbeams were rather easy to unscrew and remove, but the legs of the dock themselves (about ten of them) were buried a few feet into the lake bed. Pulling those out was probably the hardest part. But, with three guys working on it, the dock gradually disappeared from the water, and was converted into a pile of parts on the shore. The large rowboat and paddle boat were hauled up next to the stored dock parts, and our main task for the weekend was complete.

Then, utterly exhausted, the three of us returned to the cabin, and promptly fell asleep. A few hours nap later, we all awoke, made dinner, and sat around to talk some more until, once again, sleep overtook us. A very tiring Saturday had come to an end.

On Sunday, we all awoke to another beautifully sunny day. Birds were chirping, and a few pontoon boats drifted effortlessly by on the lake. With our work done, we just lazed around. Adam worked on some engineering homework (mathematics equations that I didn't care to understand), I took a walk (and grabbed some digital photos), we had a cabin-style lunch, and by early evening, we had packed up all our gear, and were on our way back here to Milwaukee. Adam was dropped off at his college again, and Scott and I returned to our apartment, whereapon, we both found our beds shortly thereafter.

And that, dear friends, was my adventure up north -- rustic cabin, beautiful Autumn colors, cold water, and all. It was great fun, and a perfect way to spend the weekend. And while the work was exhausting, the rustic nature of the area more than made up for it. Personally, I love that cabin. It's my favorite hideaway, and if the opportunity arises again (in a warm month), you bet I'd take another trip up there! I may not be part of Scott's extended family, but that cottage is my home-away-from-home. No question about it!

There's nothing quite like communing with nature. No television, no internet, almost no people. Just you, two friends, and God's paintbrush. Now *that's* a vacation!

-Jon
posted by Jon at 10:06 PM  I   I  0 comments