a day at the lake
Entertaining children can be as simple as entertaining yourself and letting them hang out with you. Children don’t have our resources or abilities, but they do have great imaginations. If you just combine everyone’s ideas, skills, and money, who knows what you’ll come up with. One day, camping at Timothy Lake, my son said to build a rope swing to balance on the water. I thought, great, all we need is a long rope and a tree leaning over deep water and you’ve got it. (Travel itineraries, tips, discounts, articles, can be read on TripTalkusa) The rope was no problem as I was in the habit of taking everything, including the kitchen sink, with us camping. The leaning tree posed a problem as the lake has no leaning trees. We took our little 12 foot aluminum boat across the lake to find a tree that we could bring back. On this low-key swashbuckling mission were a (questionable) adult 8 and 5 year old, a Sears and Roebucks rowboat with a 2hp outboard motor, a small but sharp survival saw, and a bunch of ropes and strings
We crossed the lake to an area that I assumed would have no people (because I wasn’t sure what I had in mind was approved) landed in the woods and found a stand of trees that were very tall and spindly. I selected a tree about 3-4 inches in diameter and proceeded to cut it down, except it wouldn’t fall over because all the trees around it were preventing gravity from doing its job. Finally, after a lot of pushing and shoving, my achievements and I were able to get three nice clean poles with no limbs at the water’s edge. We set up the skiff to be a tugboat and slid our log raft into the lake only to find that we had cut down Hemlock trees and they don’t float. There we were with three thin twenty-foot poles, all tied to a log raft sitting on the bottom of the lake.
Although this seemed like the end of the adventure, it was not. Our little 2 hp were able to pull the raft, and as we kept going, the raft stayed close to the surface. When we slowed down, it would sink and hang from our tow rope. This actually worked in our favor because no one could see what we were doing, and if I got caught or questioned, I would just drop the line and let our contraband sink into its watery grave. Driving across the lake dragging submerged trees with a 2hp motor seemed like forever, and I was sure we were being watched. As we approached our waterfront camp, we pulled the boat right onto shore and our illicit payload settled to the bottom in 18 inches of water. So far so good, no one knows anything, we just found logs along the shore. This is my history. Just don’t talk to my kids, they have wild imaginations and tell crazy stories. After letting the dust settle, so to speak, the boys and I arranged our three poles (still in the water) in the shape of a large letter A. Then, using a lot of rope, we securely tied the three points where the rods. That means a third grader with the help of a younger brother tied it up in never-before-discovered knots. Next, we maneuvered our non-buoyant wooden A-frame into deeper water where it was happy to stay submerged. The final step was to tie a rope to the top of the A-Frame and run it ashore to a safe anchor tree. We then lifted the top of the A-frame out of the water and tied it off leaving the A-frame standing at an angle with a short piece of rope hanging from the top. Kids could now stand on the A’s crossbar and swing. The rope swing turned out to be a huge hit and the kids played all week. The poles were not strong enough for the weight of an adult and would bend when he hung from the rope. When we break camp to head home later in the week, we tow the poles to a spot ten feet deep and sink them to the bottom with the intention of retrieving them and resurrecting the A-frame next summer. The author has more articles on triptalkusa
John 2010
