Lake Geneva’s Wintry Week

There are trout streams in Iowa. They snake through the hills of Iowa’s Driftless, emptying mostly into each other and then into the Mississippi, pushing south and collecting all sorts of debris and filth before pouring into the Gulf. These trout streams run through fields and up against massive limestone cliffs. They run through woods and under bridges, and the pools and runs generally provide adequate cover for resident trout, rainbows and some browns. The water is clear, if turned a bit turquoise from the mineral component there, and a stream in Iowa can, for some, look just like a stream in Wisconsin. Looks, in this case as in most, can be deceiving, as the Wisconsin streams are, in absolute fact, nothing like those in Iowa.

Wisconsin streams are home to wild trout- lots and lots of wild trout. Some stocking exists here, but it is hardly necessary as natural reproduction takes place with ease in most of our classified trout streams. Iowa, on the other hand, has no such luck, and most of the trout found in those waters are the sorts that were raised in a pond, fed pink pellets of dog food, and then released into a stream just in time for Cletus and his friends come and soak a pink pellet under a bobber. These are trout raised in a pond, placed into a stream, caught, and then released into a hot skillet. Iowa streams are synthetic. Wisconsin streams are natural. Wisconsin, as is our habit, wins.

But this is not a post about streams, even if a little fly fishing would do my cold soul well this morning, this post is about Christmas, and the week now past. If this week found you on the road, visiting family in some God-forsaken town somewhere but here, then you have my empathy. If this week found you at home, in the suburbs, gathered with family, then this sounds nice and all, but it didn’t find you here, at the lake, and that is sad but understandable. However, if this week found you on a warm beach somewhere, basking under a potent sun, splashing through warm waters, dining outside without a hint of irony, then you think you have won the week. You think you’ve replaced cold with warmth, hostile weather with tender weather, clouds for sun. I think it’s as you’ve found your way to Iowa, fishing synthetic waters, and you’ve missed out on all things pure and perfect.

I have never been one to fully embrace winter. If you’ve read any post over the past six years, and that post has been written in December, January, February, March, or sometimes, April, then you know this. Winter to me has always been a necessary evil, a weather cycle where we are forced into taking our turn away from the sun. As I grow older, I find I appreciate things more, even while tolerating other things less. Kids fighting in my presence when I’m simply trying to watch my football team lose a very important game? I’m apoplectic. A frigid, windless winter day, with ice and snow glazed branches filtering a cloudless sky? I’m increasingly impressed.

And so it was last week, a winter weak where some stayed in the city and others chose southern heat while I rarely strayed from Walworth County, excepting a shopping trip or two. Last Sunday, we woke to snow. Lots of snow. Seven inches worth by my tape. That snow fell only once ice covered all branches both big and small, and by mid morning on Sunday, the snow was deep, the sky was blue, and all of Lake Geneva had been transformed into an immediate winter wonderland. Monday was similar, clear with a bit of snow in the morning or at night, I cannot remember. Tuesday too, and I spent much of that afternoon chopping firewood and hauling it from the woods and to the house, a necessary exercise fueled by an out of control fire-burning habit. I discovered that I enjoy plowing my driveway with a rusty plow that has been attached to the front of an ATV, and I take the challenge of guessing where the driveway bends left and where it turns right rather seriously.

Christmas Day it was more of the same, but cloudy this time, a welcome cloud cover. My parents’ living room is lakeside, facing East, and nothing causes a more serious headache than spending a winter morning in that house, the glass wall that faces the lake channeling every bright reflection from the water, off the snow, and directly, squarely, into my squinty eyes. Close the blinds, you say? Anyone who chooses to close the blinds of the windows that face this lake cannot be trusted, and my parents are generally the trustworthy sort. So the clouds came, and we welcomed them, and later that afternoon, after some countryside skeet shooting, we returned to the lake for lunch, and caught several Bald Eagles cruising the shoreline, searching for their next meal, be it fish or fowl.

The snow that fell on the prior Sunday was added to by brief snow showers on Christmas day and some more on the day after, and that snow that fell didn’t start to melt until this past Saturday when the temperatures warmed above freezing for the first time in a week or more. With that melting I realized just why this Christmas week was so beautiful, why this winter weather was so welcome. When the snow fell, it stuck, and it lasted. It didn’t melt. It wasn’t muddied on the shoulders and melted in the ditches. It wasn’t sloppy, it wasn’t messy, it wasn’t dirty in any way. It was pure, a white snow that fell white and stayed white, and it lasted the week. Winter, as I saw it last week, has never, ever been better.

You spent the week on a beach? Well, I think that’s unfortunate. Lake Geneva is the place to be in the winter, and while I too will try to escape this icy grip sometime over the next 60 days, I cannot help but feel that I’m up to the challenge that is winter this year. More than being up to it, I think I’m actually starting to like it.