One of My Favorite Summer Time Activities

When I was younger, one of my favorite activities in the summer was going water skiing. Every year, when I would go visit my Dad in Iowa, we would drive 7 ½ hours up to Long Lake, Wisconsin to stay for a week or two. It was a very gorgeous place, right on the lake. In one cabin, we had me, my dad, my step-mom, and my brother. My step-grandpa stayed in the other cabin. He was the one with the boat.

The cabins could definitely have used some freshening up and maybe a time warp out of the 60’s (could have been 70’s, I am too young to know which decade). Some of the curtains in the cabin we stayed in were pink with white polka dots and pink bobbles on the ends. And that was just one of the rooms! There was no main theme to any of the cabins, unless you would consider a particular decade a theme, but I loved it! There was something about living right on the lake that was very calming and peaceful. Whenever I got upset (which I did A LOT being a teenager and all), I would go sit on the dock and just listen to the lake. I loved being on the water, in the water, or having anything to do with the water.

When I learned how to ski, I didn’t want to do anything else. Of course, learning was the hard part, but that was helped along with the promise of a chocolate malt from Max’s (best food ever!) if we made it up and around in a small circle. I believe we also were rewarded with a chocolate malt if we made it up on one ski and around in a small circle. I love to learn new things, and I love learning them even more when I get rewarded for having done so.

The first few times trying to get up was difficult, but I had a good teacher and I
think I got up and stayed up within fifteen tries, maybe even ten. My brother had a harder time, but once we both learned, we became avid skiers and rarely wanted to stop.

Our whole family loved to ski and one time all five of use skied behind Jonsie’s big boat, loving named Big Bertha. I believe we had every customer at Max’s outside watching us when we were trying to get up and cheering us on when we finally went around the lake.

I hope one day when I have kids, I can find a lake to take them to every summer and hopefully they will want to learn how to ski.