Lake Home No More

On the last weekend of May I visited the Krueger ancestral lake home with Jenna, the kids, and my parents. They sold it to new owners and were closing the next week so it was our last chance to visit. The house had been in our family since 1968--my whole life and then some!

It was a bittersweet vacation but I'm very glad we went. We did our best to soak in all the joys of cabin life and visited our favorite Douglas County attractions. Cheese curds & root beer float at A&W on the way up; book, antique, and weirdo nerd stores in downtown Alexandria; ice cream & Ms. Pac-Man at Little Dipper (I destroyed my high score from 2012, while holding a licorice-flavored cone); the cemetery where my grandparents are buried. Of course we made fires and took a boat out on the lake and looked for mushrooms and saw eagles and loons. We also attended an estate sale auction and I held an AK-47.

I'm sad to see the lake home go. But now we can explore new destinations and make new memories on our family excursions. We already have four camping trips on the calendar for this summer and who knows all the places we'll go? “It's opener, out there, in the wide, open air.”

In praise of used clothes

"No holes, no spots, and quite respectable, although a little worn; and a waistcoat to match, quite in the fashion. And its being worn really is an improvement, it's softer, smoother...."
-Dmitri Prokofych Razumikhin