Roadtrip2006: RedGranite Wisconsin

We leave Springfield in humidity much like that of Thailand, I would imagine, humidity like that in Atlanta when I was living there one summer fifteen years ago when, marathon training, I rotted through four pairs of shoes. It’s humidity too thick to breathe, too dense to see through. It rains all the way to Redgranite, Wisconsin, with a brief lunch stop in El Paso, and then miraculously stops.

Redgranite is north and slightly west of Madison, Wisconsin, and came into its own in the early 1900’s through the mining of a Redgranite quarry that provided red granite for Chicago and Milwaukee prior to the common use of cement. You can read more about Redgranite in the essay at Lindastravelessays.com.

We are meeting my cousins, Joel, Jennifer, and Jessica; my 82-year-old mother; and my 70-something Aunt and Uncle at the Stang cabin, which has been in her family for 60 years and which my cousins have taken ownership of. It was originally a one-room schoolhouse, and moved from another location, but now, although it appears small, it sleeps sixteen people comfortably, thanks to an added upstairs, sleeping porch, and a foldout couch. Jennifer’s sister-in-law, Nancy, from Sturgeon Bay and her 16-year-old golden retriever, Duffy, join us. What a contingency for a send-off!

I have not been to the Stang cabin for 45 years, but it appears exactly the same: Plaid wallpaper in the wood-planked living rooms and sleeping/dining porch; a small water closet and separate shower; two dormers up a steep flight of stairs, almost a ladder, really, both with several beds; and a steep incline down to Pearl Lake traversed from the original cement steps built by the original owner, Grandpa Teddy.

We conform to the Wisconsin Friday night Fish Fry tradition, down the road in Wautoma at a restaurant called SilverKryst on Silver Lake. Its’ outer décor is puzzling: A huge black steer in front, paint-peeled eyes that appear like Glaucoma greet the many Friday-night Fish Fry revelers, and the stairs within the glass doors lead down to a subterranean double door after several sets of stairs decorated with cast iron cherubs.

Like many there, we are a big family group, and we linger over dinner, laughing and telling family tales. We are in our forties and fifties, now, we children, but I remember babysitting a thumb-sucking, diapered Jennifer at the lake, and wonder where 45 years have gone.

Back at the cottage, Ethan is being put in his place by Turner, Joel’s alpha bitch. Rather than just rolling over and showing his ever-present submissive nature, he cowers and foams at the mouth. When we return he curls in my lap, exhausted, while we drink tea, tell more tales and finally crawl off, still giggling, to bed.

Our final day there includes a tour or Redgranite, pop. 900, including Mosier's Sporting Goods, a shopping tradition in Redgranite since the 50’s and the water-filled quarry, now a swimming hole for the not-faint-of-heart. Teenagers and twenty-somethings, still basking in their own immortality, jump off the shear cliffs into 200-foot-deep water. A recent fatal accident is marked with a makeshift shrine by a nearby tree. Posterboard goodbye notes, vigil candles and stuffed animals piled at its trunk make a sobering backdrop to the swimmers and divers.

Ethan tries to snatch a stuffed animal from the memorial and is hauled off to the car before he embarrasses us.

Back at the cabin, we burn the old pier, now rotted and piled up. Salvaging pieces for sentimental purposes. Run and coke, wine, and finally, the making for ham sandwiches and s’mores are hauled down the long, steep stairway to the beach, and we say our goodnights late, taking special care to climb carefully up to the dormer bedrooms and tucking in the parents downstairs.

The goodbye Sunday morning is fantastic: Seven adults and three dogs wave us off, and we do the signature family goodbye honk – two short toots as we round the curve and disappear from sight.