Geneva Lake

I mentioned in the previous post that Scott and I intended to take the boat out on Geneva Lake on his birthday but ended up on Delavan Lake by accident instead.  The day after Scott's birthday, we once again headed out for Geneva Lake.....and this time, we made it there.

We launched the boat in a cute little town called Williams Bay.  Below is a picture of the municipal pier at the launch site. 

Geneva Lake is a decent size lake.  It's a little over 5200 acres and the average depth is 61 feet.  It's deepest point is 135 feet-- much, much deeper than the Madison lakes.  The deeper the lake, the cleaner the water.  Plus we learned that Geneva Lake is spring-fed, making it especially clean.  The water in Geneva Lake is beautiful; a deep aqua-green color.  Before it gets too deep, you can look through the water all the way down to the bottom.  Scott commented that even the bubbles the outboard makes as we motor along are clear.  Now that's some clean water.

We didn't get out on the lake as early as we intended to.  I think we finally made it out around 9 AM.  There is a beach right next to the launch in Williams Bay.  Even though we didn't think it was very early, apparently beach-goers did; the beach was completely empty except for the life guard.

There are a total of 4 public beaches at different places on Geneva Lake.  They would fill up as the day went on.

As with all the lakes we have been on in southern Wisconsin, the landscaping surrounding Geneva Lake is gorgeous.  Lush.  Verdant.  Watching the anchored sailboats, pictured below, rock in the waves could lull me to sleep.

Scott and I spent the first part of the day tooling around the perimeter of the lake.  We found a small college on Geneva Lake:  George Williams College.  I need to look it up on line.  I suspect it ain't cheap to go to George Williams.  It had the appearance of a small, private, elite, expensive school.  The picture below is one of the college buildings, right on the lake by a pier and a small beach dedicated to the school.  Cute building.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think these are some of the college dorms.  If you have to live in a dorm, this is the way to do it-- walk out your door and you're steps away from a beautiful lake.

Side note:  see how pretty the water is in the picture above?  You can really get a sense of the clean color of it.

There are some amazing houses on Geneva Lake.  Who are these people that can afford houses like this??  Some examples are below.  The first house had an in-ground pool and a pond between their house and the lake. 

This house had a big clock on it....with the right time.

This next house was stunning.  You would have to have an entire staff to take care of a place like this.  It was even deeper than it was wide.  They had a huge in-ground pool and the landscaping was immaculate. Even if I could afford it, I would never want a house this big.  But it was impressive.

In addition to big houses, it appears that anybody who is anybody that lives on Geneva Lake has a wooden boat.  I'm not exaggerating when say that Scott and I counted at least 70 wooden boats in boat slips around the lake, maybe more.  These weren't just wooden boats, they were beautiful wooden boats.  Totally restored. Vintage and shiny.  It must be the thing on Geneva Lake.  They even have a Classic Boat Show in September.  Most of the wooden boats we saw were passenger boats.  The boat below, however, was a house boat.  So charming with the curtains in the windows.  Under the front overhang, they had a huge dining table and chairs.  They could fit a lot of people on that boat.

It's not wooden, but this tug boat caught our eye in one of the slips on the lake.  They must have converted the old tug boat to a passenger boat.

In the town of Lake Geneva, there are several companies that do tours around the lake.  They have some big old double-decker boats for the tours, including some with full bars, like the one below in the harbor.    

After we putted around the perimeter of the lake and did some sight-seeing, we stopped along the shore at the party spot where everyone gets out of their boats and into the water.  Scott jumped right in.  Here is his little head out in the water.  I smile when I look at that picture.  He is so cute.  I love that sweet boy. 

We put a couple chairs right in the water.  It was relaxing to sit there, staring across the lake, waves lapping against us, sun shining down, sipping on some ice cold beers.  Ahhhhhh.

We hung out for a while and then decided to go for a late lunch.  We headed all the way back across the lake, which was probably about a 30 minute trip.  I'm not exactly sure though. I slept for most of it.  We tied the boat off at a pier.....

...and then had lunch at this place right across from the lake.  Chuck's.  It's a place that's supposed to have good burgers.  We tried the burgers, of course.  They were decent and we were hungry, so it worked out great.

Chuck's is definitely the kind of place where people get out of the water and come right straight on in.  Nothing too fancy. The crowd inside spanned from a group of Harley bikers to women in bikini's.   

Oh, and there was also this guy....drinking a Keystone Light.  You read that right.  Keystone Light.  The picture proves I'm not making it up.

I didn't even know there was a bar that stocked Keystone Light.  Chuck's does.  All I can really say about that is a deadpan:  wow.

I think the lake town Chuck's is located in is called Fontana.  Big tourist spot in the summer apparently.  There is a beach, boat rentals, para-sailing.  This is a boat rental shack right across from Chuck's.

And a shack for other kinds of water sport rentals.

I'm sure it's a fun place to vacation.  Lucky for Scott and me.  We can go on vacation there every weekend, at least for a day.  That's one of the great things about having a boat and living in an area where there are so many lakes and waterways.  Every time we go out, it feels like we're on a mini-vacation.

Mid to late afternoon, Geneva Lake gets very busy with a lot of boat traffic.  It's a long lake but not a very wide one, so when there are a lot of boats out, the water gets choppy because of all the wake.  That's when it's time for Scott and I to bring it in.  I took the picture below as we were heading back to the launch.  You can see one of the double-decker tour boats.  You can also see how choppy the water is. 

Yep.  Time to bring it in.

Scott's Birthday

I took PTO this past Friday to spend the day with Scott celebrating his 40th birthday.

(is he cute or what?)

While there was cake, there were no presents to open. This was Scott's birthday present that he got earlier in the month, which was a little too big to wrap.

The weather Friday could not have been more perfect.  It was an absolutely beautiful day in southern Wisconsin.  Sunny, not too hot, low humidity.  Perfect.  We had dinner reservations at 7 that evening at The Tornado Room  (link).  During the day, we decided to go out on the boat.  Instead of hitting one of our usual Madison area lakes, we decided we would try something new:  Geneva Lake.

Geneva Lake is about an hour from where we live.  We had been to the town of Lake Geneva (I think the lake is Geneva Lake but the town is Lake Geneva--different word order, whatever), but never out on the lake itself.  It's just a little too big and too much traffic for our old fishing boat.  With the new boat, we thought we could handle it.  Lake Geneva/Geneva Lake is a popular tourist spot and, from what I'm told, has a pretty regular crowd of folks from Chicago who come up to the lake to spend weekends.

Scott had looked on line and plotted out a route to a public boat launch.  As we approached the lake, we actually saw a different boat launch than the one Scott found on line.  This launch was huge.  There were probably at least 100 trucks with boat trailers parked at this place, and that's not an exaggeration.  We paid the $10.25 launch fee (a little pricey) and off we went.

It was so lovely out on the lake.  It's quite a bit deeper than the lakes in Madison so the water was much, much cleaner.  The scenery was magnificent.

We tooled around the perimeter of the lake and looked at the houses.  Scott fished a little.  I took a nap.  It was a quiet, relaxing, peaceful day.  There was only one problem.

We weren't on Geneva Lake.

It took us a little while to figure that out.  Here is where we actually were:

Apparently just before you get to Geneva Lake, there's Delavan Lake.  Who knew?

Even though we didn't end up where we thought we would, we still enjoyed the day.  We liked Delavan Lake well enough that we will go back there again.

We did ultimately make it to Geneva Lake the next day.  More about that later.

HAPPY 40th BIRTHDAY SCOTT!

You aren't getting older, you're getting better.  I love you and I'm so happy to be spending this special day with you.

Herbs

Every year, I plant a few herbs in pots.  Not sure what is going on this year, but this is about the best my herb plants have ever looked. 

We are growing a few tomato and pepper plants this year as well.  Let's hope we have better luck with them than we did last year.  I saw a few jalapeno peppers and a couple of tiny tomatoes starting to grow.  We love our house, but wish we had a little more sunny space to plant a proper garden.  For us and based on what we have to work with, it's just plants in pots.  We'll see what kind of bounty it produces. 

Lake Koshkonong

Typically Scott and I take our boat out on 3 of the primary 4 lakes in and around Madison:  Lake Monona, Lake Waubesa and Lake Kegonsa.  Yesterday we decided to venture out and try something new.  After we determined it wasn't going to rain as predicted, we packed up around noon and headed out to Lake Koshkonong.

Lake Koshkonong is located about 25 minutes from Stoughton.  It's a big lake (10,500 acres), but shallow.  The average depth is only 6 feet.  The primary inflow and outflow is the Rock River.  Scott and I started out on Lake Koshkonong but quickly made our way over to motor down the Rock River.  It was our first time taking a boat out on a river.  It was beautiful.  First picture is my view point from where I was seated looking head down the Rock River.  I intentionally kept part of the boat in the picture for a point of reference.

It's very lush along the river.

Initially they were calling for scattered thunderstorms, but it ended up being an absolutely beautiful day.
 

Last picture of the Rock River, looking from behind in the boat.

Boating on a river is a little different than boating on a lake, partially in terms of boat traffic.  Although you can't tell in any of the pictures above, there were quite a few people out yesterday; a lot of people skiing, tubing and on jet skis.  

There were a couple places along the river where you could pull up, dock your boat, and grab a drink or a bite to eat.  We didn't stop, but I took pictures of two of the places.  I'm kind of obsessed with these restaurants that you can get to by boat.  There is just something satisfying about pulling up to a place on your boat, sitting outside in gorgeous weather and drinking a cold beer.  It's kind of heavenly.

After we were done tooling around the Rock River, we headed back to Lake Koshkonong.  There is a spot between Lake Waubesa and the channel going to Lake Monona in Madison where people anchor their boats, get out into the water and party.  Lake Koshkonong has a similar place.

We've never anchored our boat and gotten out into a lake before, but yesterday we decided to stop and join the party.  There was a fairly long stretch of boats that had stopped and a lot of people were out in the water.  I didn't get a picture that really captured the scope of it, but below are a few folks that were hanging out.  As you can see, the water is very shallow and the bottom was soft sand.  

In our old/other boat, we could have gotten out of the boat but probably wouldn't have been able to get back in it, which would be an obvious problem out in a lake.  We don't have a ladder on the new boat either, but there is a small ledge on the outboard that we used to step out of, and then back into, the boat.  Scott was the first one out.

I think lake water is dirty and nasty and I'm well known as a germophobe.  It took a little coaxing, but Scott convinced me to get out of the boat.  I do things with and for that man that I never thought I would do.  He definitely pushes me out of my comfort zone and helps me break my routine, all in a good way.  Once I got out into the water, I was fine.  The cool water was refreshing and the sand on the bottom of the lake was super soft.  It felt good under my feet.  

We've noticed when driving by the party people in the lake in Madison that someone always has music bumping.  It is a party after all.  Yesterday in Lake Koshkonong, there were 2 different boats providing music; one was playing pop/dance music and the other country.

Boats, standing out in the water, people talking and drinking beer, music playing.  Now that's a good party.  The people in the boat over Scott's left shoulder in the picture below took it to a whole other level.  Not sure if you can see the smoke, but these folks had a grill on the back of their pontoon boat and were cooking out.  It smelled so good.

Apparently this fella wanted to take a break from the sun.  I guess that's one way to do it-- the old umbrella hat.

Scott, being the friendly, social guy that he is talked to a few people who had their boats anchored around ours.  We also met this guy.

Hunter was his name.  He was so stinkin' cute and had the sweetest face and eyes.  He swam the entire time we were there.  He just went from person to person to person.  He was very social.  I didn't get pictures, but we also talked to some folks on a pontoon boat that had 2 Dobermans with them.  You know I love my Doberman Pinschers.  One, named Scooby, was quite the swimmer.  He just kept swimming around and around their boat with a football in his mouth.  When he got tired, he would put his paw on the ladder of the boat and hold himself there to take a rest.  He never rested long though.  After a brief break, he was back at it-- swimming around with his football.  He was so funny to watch.  He was loving every minute of his lake time.

That was our day on the Rock River and Lake Koshkonong.  We had a really good time.  It's so nice to have a bigger, reliable boat so we can be more adventurous in our boat travels than we were with our old fishing boat Martha.  We loved Martha, but the new boat allows us to do more.  I had some anxiety about buying the new Lund (which doesn't have a name yet), but at this point I'm fairly certain that boat is worth every penny.

New Boat!

This is our old boat.  A 1973 Lund.  With a 1969 25HP Evinrude Sportster outboard.

This is our new boat.  A 2012 Lund.  With a 2012 60HP Mercury outboard.

We loved that old '73 fishing boat but, damn, I'm here to tell you: cutting across the waves yesterday in the new boat felt like we were riding in a Cadillac.