Discovery

 The thing I like best about travel is discovery. It might be people or nature or in this case the things people do who live a different life than me. We are not that far from our lake home, but the lives of the folks living on a Great Lake is obviously quite different. The communities in this region have many old buildings obviously constructed in a much more affluent time. I am guessing these reflect the boom in timber and shipping. The lakes continue to be important for recreation and tourism and smaller versions of the industries that populated what have now become smaller towns.

So, I spend a good deal of my time on a small lake. Fall is the time of year to get the boats out of the water and pull the docks. We pay to have our pontoon taken out and stored because the process requires a larger trailer than we own. Taking the boats out in Bayfield, WI, is a much different and I am guessing costly process. Owning one of these boats would require I sell our lake home and I am not certain how I would pay for storage, maintenance, and  moving such a boat about. This is a different life style than has been our experience, but you can see how it contributes to the local economy. We watched the equipment needed for such a process in action yesterday.

 I had to throw this photo in for my techie friends.  It is a bench that I am guessing was fabricated in a local shop that combines a comfortable seat for viewing the harbor, solar panels, and the storage system necessary to power USB outlets for charging phones. It looks brand new. I seldom carry a USB cable so I could not try it out. Someone thought they had identified a need and went to work to provide a solution. I wonder about the life span of the equipment. The solar panels would be good for multiple seasons, but I wonder about the outlets in the weather. I hope the city buys several more of these units and at least the locals will figure out that charging stations are available for their use. Unlike our campground, Hayward has cell towers so phones work.