The Boats are in, but the Water's Still Cold

Periodically throughout the day, Curtis looks toward the lake and lets out a low groan.  The lake has been especially glassy these past few days, and Curtis, who’s driving the water-ski boat this year,  wants to take the Andy for a spin and test his own legs.  I feel his pain. Last week brought daily doses of heavy enough wind for a good ride in one of the Townes, but like Curtis, I know that there’s work to do.

When we got here, things looked bleak.  The cabins huddled shut from the winter, the boats slumped awkwardly on trailers, the cobwebs choking out the air in the Lodge.  Now, the cobwebs are gone, and the lodge breathes easy.  The cabins are open and inviting, and the boats have found their rightful places in the water.  We keep a list on a yellow pad of paper on a clipboard with a pen tied to it.  We check things off—leaves off the tennis court, sweep and mop the kitchen, pick up sticks—only to stumble across a dozen more unavoidable projects: powerwash the basketball court, weedwack around the Foxes cabin, buy a new power-washer and repair the weedwacker.

Every so often, Jeff recruits us for a moving project down at the waterfront, where he’s carefully assembling our beautiful Townes for summer, issuing repairs where he sees fit.  At night, we make dinner and rub our aching bones.  We tell stories about camp We wonder who will be coming back once the summer truly gets under way.  We get tired quickly, but it’s not hard to get up the next day and start again, because we know what it means.  It means that summer’s almost here.