Lost and FOUND

A boat load of things get lost at BSL,

or "simply go missing, dahling"
as our British friends might say.

Over the course of time,
where time equals decades
and even generations,
the Hofmans have lost
*in no particular order*


Bikini Tops

actually purloined we think


Boat Motors

just a simulation but it's been
on the bottom of the lake so long
I'm sure it looks uber "vies" by now


Wedding Rings

never found



Sometimes children .... briefly

found



Our appetites

deep fried food with mayo =
heart attack to go


Our way

"I thought we were in Lake County"



All Sense of Modesty

we won't name this child



and .... Countless Fishing Lures


often found in tree branches
or stuck to the back of your jacket



Soooooo .....

it is with deep satisfaction
and unbelievable excitement
and even a little bit of tear-jerky emotion
that for ONCE
we found something
that absolutely made everybody's day.

Here he is ....


with his very happy, huggy,
red-eyes-from-crying owner

This is neither here nor there
but I kinda think these kids are Dutch,
don't you?

Say What !!

It's SUNDAY you say?

Well,

then we'll just fiddle with
these sticks for a while
and try not to fall in!

Incidentally,
since this photo was taken
60 years ago,
these boys are all retirement age now.

Can you guess who they are?

The Package Tour

You know the old addage,
"A picture says a thousand words"?
Sometimes you can capture a day
in just a few, well-placed photographs.

Because there are certain benchmarks that define
every trip to BSL
lets start at the very beginning
(it's a very good place to start)
with the actual road trip up to Big Star.

Tum dee dum,
we're tootling northward for about an hour
before we turn west onto 19 Mile Road,
which bridges the much busier highways
called US 131 and M 37,
and suddenly we're immersed in 1950s Americana.
Our trip even includes a one room schoolhouse.

This one's called Big Jackson School.
Big Jackson itself is just a crossroads
that consists of a school
and a church.
Yup.
That's Big Jackson.


The countryside on 19 Mile is gorgeous.
Lots of gently rolling hills,
grazing cattle, burbling creeks,
farmyards with carefully tended flower gardens,
big red barns that say "Cousineau and Sons"
and hay bales.

The 21st century version of a hay bale

resembles a giant, Euell Gibbons-type
Little Miss Debbie Cake Roll.


And then, naturlich, for our daily dose
of Calvinist guilt,
the ubiquitous roadside chapel.

Let's motor on, shall we?
After our arrival at BSL
we can hardly wait to go
deer-shinin' and scope out
the current deer population.

To make it a true two-fer,
we usually go shining on the way
to another de rigeur pit-stop,
Jones' Homemade Ice Cream.

In addition to its unparalleled ice cream,

Jones' boasts a kind of
in-shop museum that chronicles
very important events in the history of
Baldwin, Idlewild, Marlborough
and Lake County in general.
If I were a teacher, I definitely would
schedule a field trip here.

In the handsomely appointed dining area,
Dave VH and Tom Hofman find plenty to laugh about

despite the towering inferno occurring
just above their heads.


Sometimes we are lucky and our BSL stay
coincides with a VERY SPECIAL OCCASION
called TROUTARAMA.

Troutarama, like all things American,
has very little to do with trout,
and a lot to do with drinking alcohol.

And what is a 'rama without
a Ferris Wheel?


Now we're all very tuckered out
from our first eventful day at BSL.
After we return to our respective cottages,
lie about how many deer we spotted,
how many flavors of ice cream we ate,
how many misspelled road signs we saw,
we collapse into our beds
under the eaves,
and listen to the tree branches
rustle in the wind,
and the acorns plink* plink* plink*
across the roof,
and then we fall asleep.
Priceless.

Big Star Beijing-Style

Did you know digging to China

is a lot harder than the
average backyard hooligan
would have you believe?

It takes FOREVER
and a DAY
and then a month
but, hey, wait a sec ....
Ahoy there, matey
Hannah think's she's spotted something ...

Yes!
It's China!!
It's the Beijing Bird's Nest!!!

Yee - Haw!

This calls for the
Dueling Guitar Hero Competition


Grace is being a gracious winner


and yes that is duct tape,
and not a melted silver medal, on Luke's hand
- we call him Duct Tape Hand Luke -
and no, we don't know why he
always has one wet pant leg.


Then, off to the Scenic Lake Venue
and the Two Man Kayaking Competition
with the One Man Hole

and the "Dew" Quaffing Competition

and the Smore Stuffing Competition.



Grant received 0.0 for execution
since he declined to eat a Smore,
but we did give him an 8.75 for artistic expression



Dave received a 9.5 for execution
but only a 2.5 for artistic expression


Back we go now to the Scenic Lake Venue
for the Staying Under Water The Longest Competition
which Luke won
and it was so totally not fair
because he had scuba gear
and an Oxygen Tank
plus that flag isn't even from a real country

and the Jeremiah Johnson Archery Competion
which takes INTENSE concentration
involving complicated mouth contortions

with arrows that are almost faster than the speed of light!
(check out top right hand corner)



We discovered that blind people
have an especially hard time in this competition
so we let Judy be an "almost winner"



(little side note ....
Did you know blind people
can hunt deer in the State of Michigan
unchaperoned?!?!)

Per usual the over all winner was Cap'n Steve.
Bull's Eye every time.
However ....
later on he tested positive
for excessive amounts of caffeine and self importance.



And our gold medal Beachyball
winners were (sans bikinis) ....
Hannah (Kerri) and Annalise (Misty)



That gold is lip-smackin' good.
Eet Smakelijk, Beijing.



We had only one injury


but luckily our staff of super-qualified
Olympic Trainers and Sports Medicine people
had all the latest technology
handily at their disposal.

Friend or Foe

BSL Wildlife
admired ...

and
abhored ...



Holy Batmobile Robin!

What's that little bugger
doing in a pail ?

Bumstead Ponderosa

Remember the classic kid's book

"Gone-Away Lake"?
Published in 1957, ( a year before I was born),
it's still in print today.

In the book,
during their summer vacation,
Julian and his cousin Portia go hiking through the woods
and discover a place that looks like this:






"...They climbed up on the dock and walked it gingerly,
on the lookout for loose or missing planks.
The reeds that waved above their heads had been replaced
by a growth of plumed grass, still taller,
but as they broke through the last of this,
they found themselves on raised land,
close to one of the wrecked houses
... Now that they were close to it,
they could see what a ruin the old house was,
with broken windows and loose-toothed shutters.
Someone had carved initials into the porch railing,
and on one of the square porch pillars
a crop of fungus stuck out like turkey feathers."

'It looks haunt-y,' said Portia, drawing close to her cousin.

'I'd hate to be here at night. It's bad enough in plain real day.' "






Like Gone-Away Lake
Bumstead Ponderosa is a place where
time marches on,
and like the story in the book ....

"What happened is that the woods came and captured it...

'Something like the story of Sleeping Beauty, ' said Portia.

'Something like the story of Rip Van Winkle, ' said Julian.

'Yes, except that nothing sleeps inside but furniture,
and that's probably gone to pieces by now.
Time gets into anything; yes, indeed it does;
and weather helps it.' "


BTW: 225 feet of lake frontage
VERY private