I am catching up with blogging about our recent trip to Caspian, the town I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
I grew up on Iron County Michigan. It is located on the Wisconsin/Michigan border and is one of only two counties in the Upper Peninsula that is land-locked. However, the county has around 50 inland lakes to enjoy. When the glaciers slowly receded in the last ice age roughly 3000-4000 years ago, besides the great lakes being formed, thousands of rivers, ponds and lakes were also formed. When I am in Iron County, my family tries to make it a point to visit as many of them as we can.
One of the most popular lakes is Chicagon Lake because of its size (1100 acres and the third largest in the county), proximity to town and an 18-hole championship golf course and resort (George Young) and its excellent fishing. I grew up taking the Iron County Community Schools “Beach Bus” every summer that would drop local kids off the public beach, Pentoga Park on the lake. We were generally unsupervised with a lifeguard on duty from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM. Later on in high school and college, I had many friends with cottages on the lake and spent many cherished days and nights with them. It was my first experience in meeting people from cities and I am still friends with them today. One of my best friends, Mark Bonetti, and his family invited us out to his cottage last week. His family was so gracious to my children and Mark pulled them around on the inner tube and taught them how to drive the boat. The temperature was perfect with little bugs and not a cloud in the sky. It made for a delightful afternoon. Thanks to Mark, Danell, Lauren, Jane, Beth and the rest of his family for their hospitality!
The first part of the day we played tennis at Nelson Field. We were inspired watching Novak Djokovic win his 20th Grand Slam title at Wimbledon. Owen, Oliver and Beau played a lot of tennis this week. Oliver is rapidly improving and I hope he can replace Owen as one of my tennis partners. He only needs to improve his serve. The courts are looking spectacular thanks to an old high school friend who donated the new surfaces to the courts.I was so impressed with my old high school’s sport facilities. They are much better than when I went to school there. Unfortunately, there are much less students with the high school being about half the size of when I graduated in 1985.
Bill's Blog 