Thoughts on Vacation

Well, our week-long vacation in Hayward, WI has come to an end. I'm still processing everything that happened in the last week and probably will be for a while. I'm a bit of an over-analyzer so I tend to overthink just about everything. Sometimes I think I'm just so overwhelmed with input that it takes me longer to sort out what I want to keep and what I need to let go.

Spending money on a rental house for the week was a splurge, but one I felt was justified since I haven't had a "real" vacation in a long time. Having the rental house on the lake would allow us to do whatever we wanted without the weather impacting us as much as if we were to go camping instead.

It was my first time renting a house on VRBO.com and was a little harder to find what I was looking for than I had anticipated. There was just so much to consider... location, type of house, neighborhood, size of lake, price, and of course... whether dogs were allowed. That last item was something that drastically narrowed down our choices.

Fortunately, we found a house that welcomed dogs and didn't charge an outrageous "pet fee." The only downside of the house was that it was up on a big slope with a ton of steps down to the dock on the lake. When we arrived, I joked that there must be about 93 stairs! Haha.. joke was on us. There were exactly 93 stairs. Plus at least 7 landings between the different sets of stairs.

We quickly learned to make sure we had everything we needed before we headed down the stairs to the kayaks because "running back to the house" was not easy.

Then there was the task of getting the kayaks down the hillside to the dock. We could slide them down parts of the hill and then had to walk them down some areas. Getting them back up was another story... one that definitely had me questioning whether my heart could possibly beat any faster.

The weather was challenging as well. It was cooler than expected and was overcast and rainy for most of the week. During the one sunny morning that we tried paddling out on the kayaks, the wind was so intense that there were white caps on the lake. We didn't go far that day and pretty much stuck to the shoreline, which limited our explorations.

The only other day that the weather was decent enough for paddling, we explored the floating bog and made it all the way across the lake and around some interesting shoreline on the other side. It was a long paddle that day, about 4+ miles. But it was cold and breezy and my hands were numb by the time we got back to our dock.

Exploring the floating bog.

Floating bog was pretty interesting.

So we didn't get much use of the lake while we were there, but we did enjoy fishing off the dock and caught several bass. The loons sang for us almost every day. The eagle that we nicknamed "Joe" hung out on the floating bog which we could see with the binoculars from our deck back up at the house. And of course, there was the beautiful lake view from the house windows.

Full moon rising on the only clear night during the week.

We spent a lot of time being lazy in the house... drinking coffee and hanging out on the deck most mornings, cooking, watching t.v., napping, reading books & magazines. We also explored the town... visiting shops, museums, antique stores and restaurants. And of course, the veterinarian.

But mostly we just spent time together getting comfortable with our new little family of three:  me, Charlie and Alan.

Charlie absolutely adores Alan and he feels the same about her. They are so cute together and I can see that Charlie enjoys having a male person in our pack. Alan wants nothing more than to make "his girls" happy... and he does.

Dewy spiderwebs on a foggy morning.

So even though the vacation lake house didn't turn out to be everything I imagined it would be, we made memories together and enjoyed a relaxing week hanging out and having fun.

Sometimes it's all about finding the silver lining and focusing on the things that really matter... the people and pets we love.

Rainbow after the rain. Charlie's learning to be a fishing buddy!