Last Thor’s Day, April 12, we were packing up for an eleven day trip to Red Cliff, in NW Wisconsin, beginning Friday the 13th. A weekend winter storm was forecast for the region of Ashland, Washburn, Bayfield and Red Cliff and we intended to get there with it on our heels, not in our headlights. I over-prepare for such weather events--you know, the whole bit, with a winter emergency kit plus warm clothes, boots, blankets in case we would have an extended stay in our car somewhere. I marvel at the people who have not a care in the world traveling through our part of the country and wear only the clothes they would wear in their house or apartment, with no portent of outside temperatures, predicted snow accumulations, or poor visibility, fully expecting to arrive at their destination, maybe hundreds of miles away, without incident. Sometimes I throw in an additional blanket for just those fools, if Jackie doesn’t see me.
We arrived about check-in time, 3:30 PM. It's a seven hour drive for us, a long sometimes arduous affair, not without its beauty along US Highway 2. Early in the year like this tourist traffic is low, the way I like it, and gives us a little more pleasure than when the lanes are crowded with trucks pulling boats and camper trailers. We had reservations at the Bayfield Inn for Friday and Saturday nights, and the rest of the week at Legendary Waters Hotel & Casino, in Red Cliff, where we have family. The late afternoon in Bayfield was overcast and quiet, with few local cars parked along the steeply hilly streets above the Bayfield shoreline, and occasional traffic cautiously passing through town on Highway 13, a vastly different environment from the usual hectic crowds of their annual Apple Festival in October.
The street view from our Bayfield Inn room would have been chock-a-block with thousands of people that weekend with vendors selling everything from apples and artwork to ice cream sundaes, tacos, corndogs, t-shirts, raffle tickets, face paintings, and full meals. The bars do a brisk business, of course. People of every stripe, color and persuasion walk their dogs, big and little, through the hordes of tourists. Police officers, just outside their command center across the street from Greunke’s Restaurant, push their black-belted and buckled bellies between baby strollers to subtly make their presence known. Big Top Chautauqua musicians play from a stage. On Sunday there's the big Apple Fest parade with several county high school marching bands, accompanied by wildly decorated floats and vehicles. Somewhere in the mix will be the Native Expressions Drum and Dance Troupe float, of Red Cliff, with its Ojibwe Hoop, Grass and Shawl dancers trailing behind giving their performance exhibition their all. Our relatives are a part of it and we've supported their efforts ever since our grandson, Ozaawaa, was born. But not so that April weekend. Quite literally, it was the quiet before the storm.
The system came in that evening with winds making nasty with loose tarps, flags, and awnings. Shadows of stark-fingered tree branches threatened lighted portions of an old brick building’s wall. A car’s headlights made the turn and disappeared up the hill toward Red Cliff.
Hungry for pancakes the next the morning, my 7-year old grandson Ozaawaa and I drove down to Manypenny Bistro (Formerly The Egg Toss Restaurant) for breakfast. With the high wind jerking open our car doors and wrenching at our hats and hoods, we fought our way into the bistro.
Across the street, where stood dozens of dry-docked sailboats, the wind set the tall aluminum masts and their loosened halyards into a whipping frenzy, making a howling/yowling sound unfamiliar to my woodland ears. I wondered if locals didn’t hear it any longer, if those noises became like the noise of freight trains that passed by my boyhood home in Des Moines whose loud horns and rumblings-by were just part of the environment we lived in everyday. It got to be where trains were just part of the background, just dishes rattling in the cupboards, silverware rattling in the drawers.
We watched as people swept in, their coats wrapped around them tightly, some held their caps in their hands, others shook out their hair, laughing as they did, all commenting about the hellish winds.
The day drew darker as the first tiny specks of snow flitted about past parked cars and pickup trucks. We two finished our breakfast and prepared to make for the car, now a seemingly distant oasis of calm at the curb, and off we flew, “O” taking a short-cut off the deck and me, skittering down the steps as only grandpas can, hearing his car door slam hurriedly shut, pushed closed again by Bayfield winds racing across the lake.
O pointed out the Bayfield Rec Center, as we drove by it, expressing his great desire to go swim there soon. I recognize such a wonderful diversion as beauteous in a resort town so small and relatively remote as Bayfield. Every small town anywhere should bestowed such amenity for their population.
Naturally, as a respite from child watching in a small northern town in winter (okay, technically ‘spring’)--and for the child himself from two old bossy grandparents--the rec center served quite well, I can report, even if we went in ignorant, didn’t bring our own towels, nor think to grab my swimtrunks, the latter error being just as well. There was a lifeguard on duty and dozens of kids and parents in attendance. A few other grandparent types occupied the hot tub or, like us remained dry on benches poolside, our barefeet moistened liberally by swimming passersby.
O was in heaven in the water, his dark skin and long black braid wet and shiny. He used a basketball as a floatie and sometimes shot baskets with it when he thought he would get it back. Two girls about his age, from his class at school, recognized him and swam to join him. Their laughter and fun together was fun for us too, as the weather outdoors became more aggressive and unruly. The high humidity and closeness of the rec center interior made the cold outdoors seem surreal and something from our imagination. The only way it would’ve been more pleasant for me, was if they served cold beer.
A man about my age swam laps the length of the pool in a roped off area, effortlessly alternating between free style, breaststroke, butterfly stroke, backstroke and sidestroke. In reasonable physical condition, he exercised apart the pandemonium of teenage boys cannonballing into the pool from the diving board, the noise of which I could’ve done without too.
Writing as I was, I would look up for O every 15-20 seconds to make sure he was nearby. He had a lot of activity to keep him busy, but I wanted to keep an eye on him, just in case. Grandparents are just that way.
Getting a message from grandma that she was ready to go back to the motel, I motioned to O that we were leaving in a few minutes, and lickety-split, he was out of the pool ahead of me and into his clothes before I could give him my heavy outer shirt to use as a towel. Grandma wasn’t happy with me. We put my shirt around his damp clothes, and zipped his jacket up good and tight against any chill. Grandma insisted he wear her stocking cap over his wet hair, which didn't go too well. (Uffdah, nobody will see you!)
Warming the car up before they got in, made things a little better between gramma and me, that and the fact our warmer motel was just three blocks away, and then coupled with the car’s beautiful AWD and snow tires all the way around, I could drive through the now knee-deep snow drifted along the building and get them close to the entrance so they could scoot indoors fast. What adventure!
We spent two nights and an afternoon in Bayfield, waiting for the winds to die down. I wasn't excited about having to drive anywhere in the storm, especially on roads unfamiliar to me in weather like we were having, roads that wound along the lake below, and meeting on-coming traffic over unplowed miles. We did see a plow truck go by heading north that gave me a little assurance, but driving snow and poor visibility lessened its effect. I talked to a waitress from Red Cliff who had driven into Bayfield early that morning before things really got bad.
"Oh, you'll make it, just go slow," she said assuredly, wiping a counter.
Looking for reflective lane markers that appeared and disappeared under the blowing snow the whole way of only 3.6 miles, people drove sensibly given the conditions, sharing the road rather than hogging it. We made it no problem. The best thing about arriving at Legendary Waters? It has a pool too! Miigwech!
We arrived about check-in time, 3:30 PM. It's a seven hour drive for us, a long sometimes arduous affair, not without its beauty along US Highway 2. Early in the year like this tourist traffic is low, the way I like it, and gives us a little more pleasure than when the lanes are crowded with trucks pulling boats and camper trailers. We had reservations at the Bayfield Inn for Friday and Saturday nights, and the rest of the week at Legendary Waters Hotel & Casino, in Red Cliff, where we have family. The late afternoon in Bayfield was overcast and quiet, with few local cars parked along the steeply hilly streets above the Bayfield shoreline, and occasional traffic cautiously passing through town on Highway 13, a vastly different environment from the usual hectic crowds of their annual Apple Festival in October.
The street view from our Bayfield Inn room would have been chock-a-block with thousands of people that weekend with vendors selling everything from apples and artwork to ice cream sundaes, tacos, corndogs, t-shirts, raffle tickets, face paintings, and full meals. The bars do a brisk business, of course. People of every stripe, color and persuasion walk their dogs, big and little, through the hordes of tourists. Police officers, just outside their command center across the street from Greunke’s Restaurant, push their black-belted and buckled bellies between baby strollers to subtly make their presence known. Big Top Chautauqua musicians play from a stage. On Sunday there's the big Apple Fest parade with several county high school marching bands, accompanied by wildly decorated floats and vehicles. Somewhere in the mix will be the Native Expressions Drum and Dance Troupe float, of Red Cliff, with its Ojibwe Hoop, Grass and Shawl dancers trailing behind giving their performance exhibition their all. Our relatives are a part of it and we've supported their efforts ever since our grandson, Ozaawaa, was born. But not so that April weekend. Quite literally, it was the quiet before the storm.
The system came in that evening with winds making nasty with loose tarps, flags, and awnings. Shadows of stark-fingered tree branches threatened lighted portions of an old brick building’s wall. A car’s headlights made the turn and disappeared up the hill toward Red Cliff.
Hungry for pancakes the next the morning, my 7-year old grandson Ozaawaa and I drove down to Manypenny Bistro (Formerly The Egg Toss Restaurant) for breakfast. With the high wind jerking open our car doors and wrenching at our hats and hoods, we fought our way into the bistro.
Across the street, where stood dozens of dry-docked sailboats, the wind set the tall aluminum masts and their loosened halyards into a whipping frenzy, making a howling/yowling sound unfamiliar to my woodland ears. I wondered if locals didn’t hear it any longer, if those noises became like the noise of freight trains that passed by my boyhood home in Des Moines whose loud horns and rumblings-by were just part of the environment we lived in everyday. It got to be where trains were just part of the background, just dishes rattling in the cupboards, silverware rattling in the drawers.
We watched as people swept in, their coats wrapped around them tightly, some held their caps in their hands, others shook out their hair, laughing as they did, all commenting about the hellish winds.
The day drew darker as the first tiny specks of snow flitted about past parked cars and pickup trucks. We two finished our breakfast and prepared to make for the car, now a seemingly distant oasis of calm at the curb, and off we flew, “O” taking a short-cut off the deck and me, skittering down the steps as only grandpas can, hearing his car door slam hurriedly shut, pushed closed again by Bayfield winds racing across the lake.
O pointed out the Bayfield Rec Center, as we drove by it, expressing his great desire to go swim there soon. I recognize such a wonderful diversion as beauteous in a resort town so small and relatively remote as Bayfield. Every small town anywhere should bestowed such amenity for their population.
Naturally, as a respite from child watching in a small northern town in winter (okay, technically ‘spring’)--and for the child himself from two old bossy grandparents--the rec center served quite well, I can report, even if we went in ignorant, didn’t bring our own towels, nor think to grab my swimtrunks, the latter error being just as well. There was a lifeguard on duty and dozens of kids and parents in attendance. A few other grandparent types occupied the hot tub or, like us remained dry on benches poolside, our barefeet moistened liberally by swimming passersby.
O was in heaven in the water, his dark skin and long black braid wet and shiny. He used a basketball as a floatie and sometimes shot baskets with it when he thought he would get it back. Two girls about his age, from his class at school, recognized him and swam to join him. Their laughter and fun together was fun for us too, as the weather outdoors became more aggressive and unruly. The high humidity and closeness of the rec center interior made the cold outdoors seem surreal and something from our imagination. The only way it would’ve been more pleasant for me, was if they served cold beer.
A man about my age swam laps the length of the pool in a roped off area, effortlessly alternating between free style, breaststroke, butterfly stroke, backstroke and sidestroke. In reasonable physical condition, he exercised apart the pandemonium of teenage boys cannonballing into the pool from the diving board, the noise of which I could’ve done without too.
Writing as I was, I would look up for O every 15-20 seconds to make sure he was nearby. He had a lot of activity to keep him busy, but I wanted to keep an eye on him, just in case. Grandparents are just that way.
Getting a message from grandma that she was ready to go back to the motel, I motioned to O that we were leaving in a few minutes, and lickety-split, he was out of the pool ahead of me and into his clothes before I could give him my heavy outer shirt to use as a towel. Grandma wasn’t happy with me. We put my shirt around his damp clothes, and zipped his jacket up good and tight against any chill. Grandma insisted he wear her stocking cap over his wet hair, which didn't go too well. (Uffdah, nobody will see you!)
Warming the car up before they got in, made things a little better between gramma and me, that and the fact our warmer motel was just three blocks away, and then coupled with the car’s beautiful AWD and snow tires all the way around, I could drive through the now knee-deep snow drifted along the building and get them close to the entrance so they could scoot indoors fast. What adventure!
We spent two nights and an afternoon in Bayfield, waiting for the winds to die down. I wasn't excited about having to drive anywhere in the storm, especially on roads unfamiliar to me in weather like we were having, roads that wound along the lake below, and meeting on-coming traffic over unplowed miles. We did see a plow truck go by heading north that gave me a little assurance, but driving snow and poor visibility lessened its effect. I talked to a waitress from Red Cliff who had driven into Bayfield early that morning before things really got bad.
"Oh, you'll make it, just go slow," she said assuredly, wiping a counter.
Looking for reflective lane markers that appeared and disappeared under the blowing snow the whole way of only 3.6 miles, people drove sensibly given the conditions, sharing the road rather than hogging it. We made it no problem. The best thing about arriving at Legendary Waters? It has a pool too! Miigwech!
I am somewhat late in my comment on this wonderful post. Reason: when this post was posted Willa and I were in the middle of train travel to Delaware for the celebration of my third degree black belt (among others who received new ranks). We did travel by train which took two days eastbound, and the same westbound. Willa proved to be a golden girl on the train and elsewhere . . . ah, but I digress with my own story, rather than praising yours. I especially enjoy your posts when you dip into your personal story - not personal in the way of revealing secrets of the soul, but rather telling us about slices of your life's adventures. Most illuminating. I also feel I must remind you what a truly gifted writer you are, and I look forward to the publication of your first book of short stories / vignettes. Cheers to WW who, unlike others, is not trying to usurp my Monday Thunder. Cheers! JPineS
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