Geneva on the Lake 2012
Our last day at the lake was to be pleasantly warm and sunny, so we all decided to make as much of it as possible by spending as much time as possible on the beach and in the water. But before that, breakfast was in order. Steve's Uncle Keith is not a lake person, and doesn't come up but maybe one or two days out of the week, and when he does come up he stays at the nearby lodge and not at the cottage with the rest of the family. It got out that he had never been to the Sunrise Cafe (where their gimmick is to give you a hard time), so plans were made to have him go there, and we let the staff at the cafe know that one of "those" tourists was going to visit, and to give him an extra hard time.
Turns out they weren't going to breakfast until 10am. Since our family all rose early, we decided to eat and then whoever wanted to go back again and watch the show. I was back feeding Liam when Beth came to find me and told me that Uncle Keith hadn't even placed an order before he walked out and had breakfast at a different establishment. I thought that pretty humorous but didn't bring it up with him later when I saw him since he might have been touchy about it and I didn't want to bring up a sore point.
At 11:00am sharp we headed to SportCenter to redeem the tickets earned throughout the week for prizes. Liam got a toy for now - some colorful plastic rings that fit together, and a toy for Christmas. Steve and I picked out a new Geneva-on-the-Lake shot glass since ours had shattered in an unfortunate accident. Steve got a small screwdriver set, and we got a small model sail ship to display on the cabinet in the bathroom, where I have a ocean theme going. Prizes were picked out for Aurora, and for some other children we knew, and then we were off to the beach!
A bunch of the family spent several hours on the beach - looking for lake glass, tanning, reading books, swimming and playing. The water was still pretty cold from the last couple days, but we just gritted our teeth and went in because by golly, we were going to enjoy the water on our last day! I thought Steve and I could spend some time enjoying being ON the water instead of IN the water, so we borrowed the two person kayak and set out for the lighthouse, a goal of a couple miles down the coast.
It was slow going. Kayaking is not something we do very often, and we didn't work very well as a team with the oars. We spent a lot of time rowing ourselves in circles, or large zig zags, rather than any semblance of straight. The sun was warm and we were getting tired, but the lighthouse was so close, so we pushed on and finally made it to the public park beach. We walked up to and touched the lighthouse to prove to ourselves we made it, then switched spots in the kayak and began the haul back. It was quite the trip and took us a couple of hours. A couple of hours during which the sun did its work and burned us both pretty good (Steve a little worse).
After that we were pretty much done with the beach, so we headed back for a little relaxation before walking down to dinner at the Lakefront Restaurant with Beth & Marty. We all had seafood (my Lake Perch was just okay) and Liam was a hit with the servers and the owner (just like he's a hit everywhere!). It was very pleasant to eat on the outside deck in the shade of a tree, overlooking Lake Erie.
Bellies full, we headed back to the cottages where I Skyped Mom and we all sang Happy Birthday to her - she loved it! I chatted with her for a short bit, but had to let her go so we could walk down to the top of the hill above the beach. We hoped to see the sunset, but it was too cloudy, so we sat and chatted with the neighbors who own their cottage until after the sun went below the horizon.
Yesterday, I had heard a recommendation from Kelli's boyfriend Chris that of all the places on the strip, Dairy Queen was the place to go for a good root beer float. Apparently this Dairy Queen was exceptionally generous with all their soft serve ice cream portions. So I walked up there with Jessica (it's right at the end of our street) and for $3.50 bought the biggest root beer float I've ever had - they put ice cream starting in the bottom of a 21oz cup all the way up several inches past the top, then filled it with root beer. I couldn't even finish it, though I got very close.
Jessica and I walked the strip, and she saw someone she had graduated with as we wove our way through the masses. (Steve had seen someone he went to school with earlier in the week.) I have enjoyed my chats and visits with Jessica all week. It occurs to me often that she could be the kind of person I could become close friends with, even though we don't talk much at all when she goes back to Dayton. Maybe when she moves up here for a year we could break past that point and become fast friends.