Northwoods 2020

Our official summer vacation (Up North this year) was much needed. Trying to run meetings, hit deadlines, and head up the transition to our new NYC publisher would a lot to handle in a normal year, then add the pandemic and having children constantly underfoot, and: it was rough.

I was lucky to find the lake house we rented this year – after cancelling all our California bookings and flights, it was a bit late to be booking a lake house and I didn’t have much hope, but as luck would have it – on the third week of random fruitless searching on vacation-rental apps, one afternoon a shiny brand-new listing popped up. It hit all the marks – I wanted lakefront, so we could jump in the lake as often as we wanted PLUS have pretty views out our windows on any cold/rainy days.

I wanted a nice, big, well equipped kitchen, because we’d be making all our meals.

I wanted comfy beds and that weird oversized cabin furniture. Lots of room. And this rental fit the bill on every requirement.

(I am looking and legit the picture below is the only picture I took in the master bedroom, which is a SHAME because it had was massive and had a super comfy, huge bed. Just trust.)

The house was on McCann Lake, about a 4 hour drive from Madison (about 90 minutes north of Eau Claire, and 40 minutes from the nearest rural town or even convenience store, eep).

I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until we got there and settled in – the first full day I slept in until 10am, then fell asleep watching TV while snuggled up on the couch with Linus that afternoon, and after dinner I laid on our bed to read and fell asleep yet again. Ha.

That entire week I never wore makeup, in fact I didn’t even bother to pack it. Half the time I didn’t bother with a bra, either. I got up each morning, braided my hair and slipped on my moccasins, and out the door I went. Oh, and I finished four books (!) (!!!). It was glorious.

I’ve never been particularly good at relaxing, I usually have pretty detailed schedules and we are constantly on the move. However, here there was nowhere to go and nothing to do, and so we started to get the hang of No Plans: how to do nothing but read for an entire day, how to smoothly navigate a canoe through a weedy lake, how to perfectly roast a hot dog over a fire.

Most days I would read in the mornings out by the shore, then come in and putter around the kitchen making lunch. Then back outside until nightfall, only coming in when the mosquitoes ran us off.

If we didn’t grill dinner, we’d settle the kids in the living room with a “picnic” and a pile of blankets, then put on a movie. Then Scott would cook us a grown up meal – pan-seared tuna or steak, one time a chicken and mushroom risotto. We’d pop open a nice bottle of wine and unwind. Then showers for all, and the kids went off to bed while I turned on Unsolved Mysteries and I sunk into the couch with a book. I kept the window near the couch open so I could see the moon’s reflection winking off the lake.

Anyway – there’s the overview. We got far enough away for it to feel new and foreign and exciting, but we did nothing more than relax, unwind, and reset.

Also some days were rather chilly (one day never got out of the low 60Fs) but hey, that’s why we got a nice big space so we could all spread out.

(oh, and because VACATION I stocked up on allllll the good treats. Chips of every kind, plus the Shin Ramyun Black ramen and Japanese Kit Kats from the Asian Grocery, and the dark-chocolate Milanos and Scooby grahams and Llama granola bars. YOLO DUDES.)

Our vacation staple fluffernutters made an appearance for lunch.

So: much like our Michigan dune vacation, this vacation rental had the “main” floor as the second level. Kitchen/dining, living room, main bath, and master bedroom were all on the second level. Which means the boys’ living space was all on the main level: they had a huge bedroom area including not just their beds but also a roomy lounge area and, frankly: the better of the bathrooms.

Also: direct access to the backyard. Which I put the fear of God in them to not access, as I was worried they’d sneak out late at night and fall into the lake (being a mom: fun. You think of all the potential joyous stuff, clearly). I did enjoy that direct access to the outdoors myself every morning, though.

Anyway. Back to vacation times. We made sure to drag along our Bloody Mary staples and you best believe we enjoyed a few.

I have to just say: because of the COVID-19 situation this year, I had my work cut out for me. I had to pack the trunk not just with 9 days of usual-vacation things and usual-lake things BUT ALSO I had to include disinfectants, masks, antibacterial wipes to wipe down the WHOLEEEEEE HOUSE when we arrived, and: all our groceries. Oh, yes friends: the goods for every single breakfast lunch dinner drinks and snacks. Somehow we were able to fit it all in the trunk, God bless. Also I hope I never have to plan vacation eating to that level of detail ever again in my entire life.

I went crazy on Amazon and bought like $200 in floaties for the trip, then it turned out the lake was super weedy and we rarely took them out. Ha, figures. Oh well now we’re ready to roll for lake lounging for pretty much the rest of our existence. At least Scottie and Pete enjoyed a few of them.

(We did sneak away one day, to the Apostles, but more on that to come in another post.)

Our rental included a “boat house” that was converted to be more of a lake-toy-storage-slash-hangout-spot. It had that heavy-duty basement style carpeting and a set up to hold SUPs, paddles, life jackets. It also had a table/chairs area to take your meals, although we preferred the patio sets outside.

The four books I finished below! Monarch Beach was THE WORST thing I have ever read, and that’s really saying something. It was on a shelf in the rental and I read it on a whim because I breezed through my three books already. Terrible writing, really clunky, and the main character was supposed to be an heiress in 2015 except all the fashion references to her clothing were at least a decade outdated and consisted of stuff you could find at any Macy’s in 2004, not exactly heiress levels (Coach bags and BCBG dresses and Juicy Couture sweats, seriously?). Also I was supposed to suspend belief and pretend even though she was in her mid-30s, that Parsons in NYC “held” a “fashion scholarship” for her to come back at any time? Sure sure. That’s real. The book was so bad. And hey – I’m down for a good beach read when on vacation, no hate there, but it has to have some semblance of decent writing skills and be actually believable.

Garage fridge was clutch, held all the lake beverages and chilled snacks.

I legit have about 300 more pictures but this group seems to sum things up nicely (we’ll save the rest for the photo books). I hoped to come back with a better tan but alas, the cloudy chilly days didn’t work out well for that. That’s okay. We were well rested all the same and ready to tackle The Weirds again.

Thanks for hanging in there and checking everything out, we’ll see you again soon as I catch up on 4 months of solid blogging material.