How to Survive a Vacation

Summer 2015 Bob Weis has a problem. For years, he has woken up with vivid dreams of where, as a young boy, he and his family spent their two-week summer vacations. Fifty-five-years had not dulled his desire to return. Now, he has to convince his wife, Lynda, to drive a thousand miles to a place he often described as, "full of snakes, mosquitoes, and dead fish." Not an easy sell, and Bob couldn't sell Christmas cards to his grandparents. Somehow, Bob musters up the courage to share his dream of returning to Red Muir's Camp in Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin. Lynda is less than excited, but their other vacation plans had fallen through, and going to northern Wisconsin would be better than nothing. She hoped. During their long drive to Wisconsin from Tennessee, Bob looks back on his family vacation in 1959, when he was nine-years-old. The preparation was a big part of the whole vacation. The 375-mile drive from Aurora, Illinois to Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin was before air-conditioning, fast food, interstate highways, GPS, and all sorts of other electronic gadgets. They drove single-lane, shoulder-less roads that passed through every little country town. His mom's family had been vacationing in Land O' Lakes every year since 1922. When his grandparents first ventured north, it was a two-day, grueling journey, requiring extra tires and camping gear, because there were no motels at the time. They arrived exhausted at their cabin at the resort, only to be greeted to the luxury of no heat, running water, electricity, or plumbing. A one-seater outhouse served the whole resort. Compared to that place, Lynda thought Red Muir's Camp sounded like Shangri-La. Bob continued with stories about The Gateway Hotel, eating lunch at the "Stinky Place," hunting for night crawlers, riding Methuselah, visiting a haunted island at night, building The Galloping Ghost, visiting the dump, and always avoiding snakes. Lynda slowly drops her guard, and asks probing questions, to which Bob has a ready response. Finally, after hundreds of miles and hours of stories from the past, they pull into Land O' Lakes to stay at the legendary Gateway Lodge. Now came the hard part; Would they have a good time, or could being gone over half-a-century have clouded Bob's memories? "How to Survive a Vacation" will answer those and many more questions.