Lake Trip

We've been visiting our lake place for over 40 years, and this view doesn't change. We bought the land in 1970, camped in tents, trailers, built a little cabin almost 15 years ago, put a big porch on the lake side so we could sit out and watch the lake. There's an island out in the middle that has some history to it.

Most every repairman, deliveryman, or neighbor sits on the steps and looks at the island and tells us how they used to swim to it, fish from it camp on it when they were kids. Our kids did too, but didn't sleep over because it was sort of dark and spooky.

Our neighbor, Bob, put some goats out there to clear the underbrush. When they were all done clearing, he found some big old gears half buried in the dirt. We all knew that the island was used somehow to turn train cars around when they were mining phosphate, up until they hit springs back on the 30's. Turns out, these old gears have swastikas on them, so they must have been made in Germany long time ago. Bob and his boys built a raft on some oil drums and floated one of the small gears to his yard. It's only about three feet across, but it nearly sunk the raft. Now it sits down there like a little coffee table,

The water is low this time of year, and the old trestles stick out of the water, but the rails are long gone. You have to wonder how hard they worked, many years ago, to dig and haul that phosphate. Now all is quiet, the water is clear, the fish are happy. Kids are still swimming out there, playing pirates, or Indians, or maybe Nazis.