Midsummer

We pulled into Memorial Park Campground in Washburn, Wisconsin just before lunch on a Thursday and grabbed one of the few spots left in the campground. It was just a few sites down from where we stayed four years ago. We love a good first-come, first-serve campground, especially one with no stay limits. We unfurled the awning and settled in for the summer.

For us, these days, settling in means signing the kids up for Jui Jitsu, getting library cards, and figuring out the best places to get in whatever body of water is nearby. Washburn, and nearby Ashland, provide all that and more, perhaps most importantly, reasonable temperatures all summer, little in the way of crowds, and the kind of hospitality you really only find in small towns anymore.

At their first Jui Jitsu class one of their classmate’s mother invited us to a midsummer party. Summer is bigger deal up here than it is in say Florida. When something is so fleeting you appreciate it more I think. Whatever the case, we showed up and had a great time. There was music, flower wreaths, comedy, even sack races. The kids danced late into the night. It was a good way to celebrate midsummer, something I’ve never celebrated before.

While Jui Jitsu, libraries, and swimming holes are all we really need, we do appreciate there being good Mexican food, and as of this summer, Washburn has that. All this corner of the world needs now is for the shifting climate to mellow out the winters a bit.

I think if we’d been closer to Washburn in 2020 when the U.S. shut everything down, we’d have rented a place around here. But of course that’s not where we were so we’ll likely never know how we’d handle a winter up here. For now though, it’s a pretty great place to spend your summer.