Getting There

by Richard Baker

I don’t think at first that I really understood the attraction of boating in an area away from your home. I mean, I knew people who did it, and I knew they loved it. But for my wife and me, it didn’t make sense. Here we are, near Madison with these four beautiful lakes, the largest of which is maybe 10 minutes from where we live in Waunakee (and yes, it is the only Waunakee in the whole world). So why would any one want to drive 2 hours or more, when you can boat anytime you can find a few minutes, relatively speaking of course. And then we decided we needed to know more about boating, so we joined this boating club called United States Power Squadrons. The next thing you know, we’re going on a cruise for a week on the Mississippi. The next year the Apostles; then Lake Winnebago; then back to the Big Muddy. Before you know it, you’re hooked, and coming back to a lake with 20 miles of shoreline just isn’t the same any more.
We kept returning to The River. It just seems to call to you, and after a while you have to give in. It’s just so...big. Not big like the Great Lakes, or surely not like the oceans, but there is a relentless power here that is unique. When you consider that it flows constantly, and I don’t mean day after day- I mean century after century, well, you just have a hard time wrapping your brain around the idea of that much water. Now, I hear those of you who have rowed across the Atlantic or whatever laughing at my idea of a lot of water, but cut me some slack, look at where we were boating before.
So, now we load up the convertible, put the top down, and head to Dubuque. The first half hour is a winding two lane, which goes past Martinsville, a town which always made me think of some small Southern town where maybe a Civil War battle was fought; past a farm where the lucky owner has a pond, and if I was him, I would sell every boat I had with an engine and just float in a wood skiff; and then through a berg call Klevenville, that’s so small it doesn’t even have a bar, for Pete’s sake.
Then onto the four lane. And what a road it is! As you pass through the cuts blasted out of the limestone, you can see the different layers and imagine the millennia it took to lay down that much rock; and when you realize that the dirt the farmers are using is at most about 2 feet thick, probably throughout most of southwestern Wisconsin, you just have to be amazed. You can see the marks the drills left as they drilled down into the rock to set the charges that would cause the rock to split where they wanted it to. There are at least two spots where it’s obvious that before long, a huge piece of the soft limestone is going to calve off like an iceberg- what a joy it would be to see that!
One day, as we are coming down the ramp, we fall in behind a 60’s muscle car convertible, and just ahead of him is an older sporty thing, also a convertible, and for a while, we’re a convertible club out for a weekend jaunt.
The llamas always grazing outside of Mt. Horeb usually get a laugh out of the grand kids. A little past that is a farmhouse that, when we first saw it 15 years ago, made us joke about buying it and fixing it up; but now it’s maybe five years from being garden mulch.
I also never understood the attraction to motorcycles- that is, till I got a convertible. Now, I totally get it. You are sometimes gambling with the weather, and of course, you don’t have to gamble- you could put the top up and be like everyone else, but what fun is that? So one day, the clouds are looking mighty ominous, and we’re going up that big hill outside of Dickyville, and I look over the windshield and above me is this small patch of blue sky with all kinds of angry gray around it. Suddenly, I can imagine myself soaring upwards, through the opening, and now I know what dying might be like, and you know what? It wasn’t scary.
But I’m not going anywhere just yet. As we come down the final hill, the bridge is in sight, and Toby sits up as he smells the river for the first time this trip. We check the water level and boat traffic with a quick glance upriver then down. Under the bridge, turn left and we’re at the marina. As I peer over the bank I can see our boat, and it’s still floating, and to me that’s always a bonus. It’s going to be a good day.

See you on the River.

This article originally appeared in the January 2008 edition of Harbor Lights, a publication of the Madison Sail and Power Squadron. Copyright 2008 Richard Baker