Madeline‘s friend’s family generously invited us to spend a weekend at their lake house this summer. Unfortunately, it was a weekend while Andrew was in Europe with Ellie, but Madeline and I took them up on the offer and had a really good time.
A lot of people in Indiana have lake houses. Both northern and southern Indiana have some nice lakes, although I know more people who go north than south. My dad grew up on Cree Lake, a small lake in northeastern Indiana, and my grandparents lived there until they died. Although I love that house, I think it was more about my grandparents and family gatherings there than the lake.
One of my earlier memories came at Cree Lake. My parents went away for an anniversary trip, and we five kids (my parents definitely needed to get away!) stayed at my grandparents‘ house. On the first day there, I stepped on something — probably a broken bottle — in the lake and got a big gash on my foot. Grandma patched me up and didn‘t allow me to swim the entire rest of the week. My sister, who is as selfless as they come, also stayed out of the lake the entire time. Whether this was her just being nice to me, or whether her teenage self wasn‘t all that interested in swimming in the lake with her brothers and cousins, I don‘t really know. But I remember that I was really happy she kept me company while everyone else was in the lake, where I wanted to be. I also remember my mom taking me to my pediatrician after we returned home, and the pediatrician saying that she would have stitched it when the wound happened, but that it was too late at that point. I was really glad Grandma had not taken me to the doctor when the cut happened, although in retrospect, the daily dabbing of mercurochrome probably hurt more than a few stitches would have.
[As I was typing this I decided to look at the bottoms of my feet to see if I could tell where the cut happened, and I cannot. So I guess Grandma was right and the pediatrician was wrong!]
But back to last summer‘s trip. Another family was also invited to the lake, and for some reason I don‘t remember, I ended up with all three girls overnight at my house the night before we went to the lake. They‘re awesome girls, and it was good to have them. The following day we stopped by a sunflower farm on the way up to the lake and had a fun little photo shoot.
The weekend turned out to be cloudy and not so warm, but the girls still got us out on the lake several times. They loved being pulled behind the boat until they flew off! For my part, I never touched the water. I love being near a river, lake, or ocean. But I don‘t love getting into it. And every time I‘m on a boat, I find myself counting down until I can get off of it. I‘m not a terribly strong swimmer, and I‘m sure that‘s part of it. But I also feel like natural bodies of water are already inhabited by creatures who don‘t really need me with them. Don‘t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun on the boat and really enjoyed seeing the girls on the “floating sofa” (I don’t know what it’s really called), but if someone had insisted that I get on the floating sofa, I would have had considerably less fun.
One interesting thing about that lake is that it sits in two different time zones. Most of Indiana is on the Eastern time zone, but a pocket in southern Indiana and another in the northwestern part of the state choose to be in the Central time zone, to be consistent with major metropolitan regions they’re near. My phone would literally change time while we were tooling around the lake. Our hosts said they stay on Eastern time when they’re at the lake, just to make life easier. Since life at the lake is all about taking it easy, that seems about right.