Quick Escape

After Joe and I dropped Madeleine off at camp, we treated ourselves to two nights at the Northernaire in Three Lakes, Wisconsin.

Joe had two words in mind when he found out we were headed to northern Wisconsin: supper club. How can I explain the concept of a supper club to those from out of state? Wikipedia does an average job, but still, there are aspects lacking on the Wiki page. And Joe, growing up in northern Wisconsin, is much more adept than I at spotting a real, live Wisconsin supper club. So Sunday night we found a place up in Eagle River that identified itself as a supper club and we both had decent steaks (quintessential supper club fair) and Joe had a whiskey old fashioned and, luckily, the supper club was well situated with a dining room full of windows overlooking one of the area's many lakes.

Monday we explored Three Lakes and Eagle River a bit more on foot but by noon we were out in a 14-foot Mirro Craft with a 25-horsepower outboard motor (in other words a small fishing boat w/one of those motors you steer with your hand, not a steering wheel) exploring the twenty-eight lake chain. We did not make it to all twenty-eight lakes. In fact, I think we only made it to seven or eight of the lakes, but we had such a fun afternoon. Straight away we ran into some loons floating around one of the lakes and they seemed completely unphased by our arrival, no matter how close we got.



Of course we cruised on over to the lake where Madeleine's camp is located and tried to spy on our little girl but, while we saw campers, we didn't see our camper but, still, I was able to snap some shots of the camp from the lake view.





At some point we stopped to eat our sandwiches in one of the lesser-traveled channels though, to be honest, most of the lakes were pretty empty in general.





Later that evening we sampled another supper club, though this one was far and away more the sort of thing I always envision when I hear the term supper club. Maybe that's because, in my mind, I'm still stuck on the idea that supper club=1985, so I'm always a tad disappointed to see the modernization of an old-fashioned supper club. This second supper club was, in all respects, still serving its clientele of the eighties and Joe and I were able to satisfy our supper club craving for the next two, three years (or more!). After that we saw Public Enemies (not very good, but fun since it was filmed in Wisconsin) and then back to our hotel to fall asleep to the sounds of loons out on the lake.

A very peaceful and much needed escape!