Lake Geneva
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Grilled and slightly peppered, the salmon steak covered a heavenly soft garlic buttered mound of mashed potatoes…but I couldn’t look at my plate, too busy was I darting my eyes across the main dining floor of Gordy’s Boat House and Cobalt Lounge in Fontana, Wisconsin, on the west end of Lake Geneva on a weekend where my family spent quality time eating, shopping, and doing touristy things in Lake Geneva, Williams Bay and Fontana, Wisconsin, all within a short distance of my home in McHenry County. With the gasoline prices so high this spring, I know I’ll do much shorter vacation trips and I suspect many people won’t venture too far from home either, unless magically and with some government intervention the price for a gallon of gasoline drops to a manageable $2.50 to $3.00 a gallon. Hours before we drove on Route 50 north of Lake Geneva to the west end and Fontana, my wife, kids and I listened to a Cove of Lake Geneva concierge tell us of the great restaurants in the area; Scuttlebutts, Geneva Inn’s Grandview Restaurant, Popeyes, Ristorante Brissago, and Gilbert’s, but we chose one my youngest son had already visited with a friend and his family, weeks earlier, maybe because he got a blue plastic cup saying Gordy’s or maybe because the concierge told us we might very well see television star John Mahoney of Frasier fame standing around inside Gordy’s…..but I darted my eyes, and never caught a glimpse of Frasier’s dad, Martin Crane, but then again, the concierge said he’s bald and I can barely recognize my own bald head., let alone someone else’s.
Destination Lake Geneva in the summer, certainly, people can’t get enough of the resort town, its beautiful body of water, great restaurants and shops and fabulously huge mansions, not withstanding the Wrigley Mansion and other no less incredibly expensive homes of notoriety because of its owners from our history, Sears, Pinkerton, Montgomery Ward, and Swift…and of course, the creators of the Young and the Restless, William and Lee Phillip Bell. We didn’t go in the summer…..this is spring and a very cold and wet spring …..on this particular weekend, forecasters said tornadoes were possible …and the areas under the alert were southeastern Wisconsin, McHenry and Lake Counties in Illinois, so I expected a smaller crowd at the downtown Geneva stores on Broad Street, maybe fewer people in line at a favorite shop, where you walk slowly dipping crackers or small pieces of bread into all kinds of mysterious spreads, well, the owners of this popular shop next to a fudge shop listed the dips and cheeses and where to buy them in the store…..but those small spoons didn’t serve my son Brant very well. He dug the spoon into a large key lime pie, scooping into his mouth a meringue as sweet as Brant has ever tasted and a bit of crust and key lime….ten spoons later, he had to go over to a helper at the store and ask to have a basket filled again with these tiny white spoons. But I nudged him onward, as others older and less patient squeezed behind us for their small scoop of key lime passion…..Brant found a jelly like substance, spread it on a piece of bread and passed it to me….and outside of wondering whether he’d washed his hands, I took the piece of bread and spread, and ate it…and wow, what an after taste, burning my mouth…and then another spread, more burning….until I made it to the back of the room, where my wife held a bottle of Elvis wine. Well, we passed on the wine, though I think my wife was thinking of buying the wine for her Elvis loving mother. You know I missed the World’s Largest Bunny Hop for the World Record Weekend at Lake Geneva, but I made the World’s Worst Mouth Burn on spicy food….so this couldn’t be all bad.
We were fascinated by the prospect of stepping back in time, maybe seeing the stars and planets at the Yerkes Observatory on Geneva Lake in Williams Bay. Driving there from the Cove of Lake Geneva didn't take long as my son Brant kept me informed on his sighting of the observatory dome in the horizon. We entered the grounds and drove right up to the imposing entry, where we learned Yerkes is part of the University of Chicago from an inscription in the brick. Brant and his mom walked up the steps to the big door....and rang the doorbell, and after a few minutes, a woman came to the door...kind of like the Great Oz looking out a peep hole at Dorothy, the scarecrow and her other weary travelors..... the woman peered outside, and told my wife and son that she was a volunteer and we missed the tour by an hour....a bit dejected by this, my wife and son turned around, walked down the steps and vowed to return. The woman closed the huge door and went back to whatever she was doing. Despite missing a chance to bring astronomy into my kids lives, the Lake Geneva weekend was a great weekend, really, but made all that much better by the folks at the Cove of Lake Geneva. They were excellent hosts, the room we stayed in was the cleanest and best since our visit to the Island of Maui where we stayed at a similar place with a working kitchen, and a balcony, dining room and living room. Lake Geneva…hope to return soon….thanks for the memory…..
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Molly J
