Back to "The Sac"

Our good friend Courtney and her family own a lake home in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin on Lake Wisconsin. This is a small town and lake community (which is apparently the home of Dusty Carlson, as I recently found out) about an hour northwest of Madison and is about a 3 hour drive (with traffic) from Chicago. According to my sources, people from this town are called DuSacians (pronounced du-SACK-ians, or my favorite, du-SAY-shuns). We've been there once before and had an absolute blast, so we were super pumped to be invited back for another round this past weekend.




The crew looked to be slightly different this time (scheduling conflicts prevented some of our favorites from coming up) but we still had some solid players as Courtney's brother Jeff (aka Jeffro, aka Fro) and his girlfriend Alex (the next Veronica Corningstone) were gonna be there with us. Also, Chris and Ashley Therasse, two of our great Chicago friends, were our car buddies.




We hit the road on Friday after putting in a full day at work and could not have been more ready to get out of town. That said, I believe we become so ingrained with the day-to-day routine in the city that I don't think one really knows how much he needs a breath of fresh air until he actually gets out on the open road and into nature. And there is no place that satisfies this inherent itch to flee the city than Wisconsin.




A few thoughts on Wisconsin. This place is amazing. I've had a few Wisconsin adventures since living in Chicago including a couple of lake trips (Geneva and Wisconsin), Packers-Cowboys at Lambeau, a weekend in Milwaukee, and ice-fishing in the dead of winter, and this state never disappoints. The people are friendly. The food is fantastic (cheese curds rule). The rolling hills, corn fields, and the frequent farmhouses/silos all make for awesome roadside scenery. This is the stuff I've always thought of when imagining what the Midwest would be like. Love me some Wisconsin.




Anyway, after a few wrong turns, a gas stop, and a dinner run where I became reacquainted with Wendy's dollar menu in a big way, we made our way up to the lakehouse. Friday night was pretty tame as I think we were all pretty tired from the drive up, but we were still able to knock over a few Miller Lites and get in some solid Taboo before the main event Saturday. Quote of the night, "When I was little, all I wanted to be was a Chinese-Japanese......NINJA!"



Saturday was tubing day! The Nelson's lakehouse is just a short distance from where the Wisconsin River is dammed off to form Lake Wisconsin, so beyond that lies a big, lazy river that is popular for canoeing and tubing. This was not much different from what we know tubing to be in Texas, except that the river was much wider and there was actually water in it. It was an absolutely gorgeous day (a day where Chicago got almost 7 inches of rain, so nice timing). Jeffro's friend Kyle Karmell joined us for this and made a big impression on us in a short time. This guy was a complete animal, and gelled with the crew immediately. Tubing highlights included, but were not limited to:

- A plethora of man rugs (all four of us guys where rocking out the chest mane)
- Jeffro telling us he actually owns the domain name http://www.manrug.com/
- Drinking ice-cold Miller Lite in Miller Country
- Lunch stop at a random, but awesome sand bar in the middle of the river
- Stage-frightened Ashley swimming like Johnny Weissmuller thru a strong current so she didn't have to pee in our presence
- A certain someone's swim trunks being shed



After returning home and taking a quick breather, focus returned to what we do best at the lake: eating and drinking. Summer beer (a Nelson family recipe) was flowing like wine and the grill got fired up for some tasty burgers and Hebrew national hot dogs ("they snap right in your mouth" according to Jeff). We also broke out the Bags (aka Cornhole, aka Bag-O), which is progressively becoming my favorite backyard game (Sorry Mr. Washer). As the night progressed, we found ourselves down in the basement having a dance party, which was nearly derailed when I stepped on Wendy's gimp, marathon toe. Karmell remedied this with a bag of frozen peas and carrots reinforced with a toilet paper wrap (using approximately 2 1/2 rolls)....great idea Kyle.



After the dance party died down, we all decided on a late night swim ("clothing optional" as Karmell put it). I can't stress enough how perfect the weather was all weekend, but it was especially awesome around midnight when we went down to the water. It was nearly pitch black with literally the only light coming from the stars above. The water was the perfect temperature and we swam under the stars for about an hour. I even saw a shooting star, which I got so excited about that I momentarily forgot how to tread water. The late-night swim was, quite possibly, the highlight of my weekend.



The rest of the evening and the next morning were pretty uneventful. Chris and Ashley (who graciously provided us with transportation to and from the lake) and Wendy and I decided to spend Sunday afternoon in Madison and have lunch. We decided on the Terrace at the Student Union on the UW campus. I never knew this but the campus sits right out on Lake Mendota. Even as a Longhorn, I was impressed. Madison actually reminded me a lot of Austin, which I've heard many times before. Even the Capitol, while being slightly less spectacular, looked very similar to the our Capitol in Texas.



From there, we high-tailed it back to the city we know and love. I don't think we were quite ready to come home though....



What a weekend! Well played Wisconsin. Well played.