Lake Traditions

[Island Life]

Originally Posted by moose tracks

It takes five hours to drive to our camp. I never thought of our "car talk" as a tradition, but...we try to guess how much the gas prices are going to be in NH, usually 25-30 cents cheaper a gallon. Then there's the..."I wonder who is at their camps this weekend..." As we wind our way to camp, the car windows are rolled down and the sweet pine smell...aahhh. We know we're at camp, when the neighborhood mascot, a year round resident golden retriever stops by or swims out to greet us. As for leaving camp, a quiet stare at the lake, a final walk down of the property. We gas up at the country store, get a cup of coffee and the local paper and settle in for the ride which now feels longer than ever.

Moose Tracks, I notice another tradition in your comment. You lovingly call it "camp." Ours is very much a camp and - for tradition's sake - I wouldn't think of calling it anything else, but there are fewer and fewer places around the lake that can be called "camp." I wonder how the owners of those mcmansions-by-the-lake refer to their places?

[moose tracks]

Good thought....we can thank my mother-in-law for our "camp" lingo tradition.
How do you know it's a camp? When you're driving up with 14 gallons of water in your trunk...when you hope the local spring is still running or nobody gets to flush...if a tree isn't across the driveway, you may get the honor of pulling up to the camp...when you use rabbit ears covered with aluminum foil to get your one snowy channel so you can watch Fritz Weatherbee's NH Chronicles...and you check the basement to see if the local mice have met their demise at the DeCon diner...

[Waterbaby]

I've been "Laking It" for, well, more years than I admit to being alive , but just started what's going to be a tradition with my 11-year-old son....... Thursday I took him on a road trip to see the iced-in lake for the first time in his life. (He's only seen the Lake from ON it.) Picture it..... we're driving into Alton Bay, I told him to get ready and look -- he sees what he's used to being "blue" water, and tells me "Mom, something doesn't look right, it's a lot of white!" I went........ and explained that's how the Lake looks when frozen!!!!! We stopped by the Alton town docks, he saw men drilling in the ice and a plane land We continue on our way up toward Laconia, stopping at both scenic views. Continued up to Meredith, where he was fascinated by the BobHouse Village -- ya'll should have seen his face after I got him 15' onto the ice and said "when we get home you can tell Dad you walked on the Lake". YIKES! said his expression, as he froze in place -- he thought he was still on land! I saw a BobHouse (called "The Lodge") -- the generator was running and the padlock was not on the hasp, so I knocked on the door and introduced my son and myself and explained he had neither been on the ice nor seen a bobhouse before, and could my son see the inside? The gentleman inside was gracious enough to invite us in. In addition to all of that excitement, my son saw a plane taking off from the ice in Meredith, and several snowmobiles going onto the Lake from the Inn from Bay Point Inn(I think it's called), and he also spotted the WMUR camera atop the roof. All in all, a fabulous day for him and I! I loved being able to show him another "side" of Winni, and now he can't wait to go up at the end of March or beginning of April to see part of the "ice out" process......... another tradition to start!

Sorry to ramble on so, it was just such a precious day for us as the beginning of a new tradition, and I wish all of you many more traditions!

[SIKSUKR]

That's good stuff Waterbay

[joann721]

We brought our Nephew who is 5 to the lake last weekend.

He also had never seen the lake frozen. He was taken with the planes and
the snowmobiles. But he didnt want to "walk" on the lake. He was very hesitant about it, and that type of caution is good so we didnt push it.

His best comment of the day- IT LOOKS LIKE A GIANT ICE CUBE !!!



I love the lake and all that it represents ...

[KBoater]

I always consider that I am “Home” when I see the lights or houses of Wolfeboro from the Rt. 28 “Hills” in East Alton. What are those hills really called?

Also a fall foliage trip around the lake by boat is a must. This is getting harder every year since my commitments in FL start in Oct.

[Weekend Pundit]

I am fortunate enough to live in Gilford year round, overlooking the lake from Gunstock Acres. However that doesn't mean that we don't have our own tradition when it comes to the end of the boating season.

At the end of the last trip on the lake before we pull our boat out of the water, we play Don Henley's "Boys Of Summer" on the boat's stereo as we pull in to the docks at Glendale.

It seem like an appropriate song as our summer ends once the boat is on the trailer. That song always fills me with melancholy when I hear it as it expresses the feelings we all have when summer is over.

[Hallnit]

I always wear my bathing suit in the car up to the lake and as soonas the car is in park, I race to the water and jump in and go AHHHHHH
Before we leave, I drop my wife and boys off at the dock and go for a beat run in the boat by myself, just to clean out the carb

[Waterbaby]

Originally Posted by joann721

We brought our Nephew who is 5 to the lake last weekend.

He also had never seen the lake frozen. He was taken with the planes and
the snowmobiles. But he didnt want to "walk" on the lake. He was very hesitant about it, and that type of caution is good so we didnt push it.

His best comment of the day- IT LOOKS LIKE A GIANT ICE CUBE !!!



I love the lake and all that it represents ...

Love the ice cube comment!!!!!!! My son didn't want to walk on the ice either, but I kind of tricked him into it, and you are so right about that type of caution! One of the guys I work with made a derogatory comment today about my son being too cautious and a baby, and I just told that guy that in that instance I was happy my son was cautious -- better to not walk on the ice and not take the chance of falling through than being stupid and just jumping onto it!!!!!! I took the precautions the night before the outing to check ice depths, however, and watched others walk across to determine the path I felt most safe. (And I will admit, I was a bit leery myself -- it's been a long bit since I walked on the Lake myself!)

Nest installment: When I take son to the Lake to see Ice Out occuring! Stay Tuned!