We always meet great people on our adventures, and as luck would have it, we weren't the only ones in this predicament! As we sat in the lot wondering when we would be back on the road, we met Tom, Theresa and their cool dog Bo who were also heading north, hauling their boat, and broke down. None of us were willing to completely give up on our weekend plans so with nothing better to do, we opened the cooler and shared a few while waiting to hear the damages from the repair shop.
Tom & Theresa were lucky enough to have their vehicle repaired within hours, however we were stranded at least until Tuesday. We were not about to sit in the parking lot for the whole weekend, and realized there was a U-haul dealer not even a block away from where we were. A U-haul dealer with trucks and hitches! So before we knew it, there we were pulling the boat with a U-haul truck! (No pictures of this. Thank God!)
We usually launch the boat at one of the ramps on the southern half of Lake Winnebago, and spend our time between Fond du Lac and Oshkosh. We love the lower half of the lake and spend a lot of time at The Streich, Jim & Linda's and the Yacht Club. This time we launched at High Cliffs and spent our time on the northern half of the lake. This was a completely new experience for us, and we had a great time finding new spots and meeting a lot of new people.
Exhausted after our day in the parking lot, we spent the night at High Cliff State Park and met our friends Bob & Doreen at The Streich the next day. For dinner, we headed up to Oshkosh and ate at The Boat Yard. We had been reading a lot about another party spot on the lake called the Sandpit and set off to find it the next day. The Sandpit is on Lake Butte des Morts, which is connected to Lake Winnebago by the river. The river is a really nice boat ride, especially since we fit under most of the bridges. The railroad bridge is the exception, which we patiently waited for 4 times throughout the weekend. It turns out that the Sandpit is not as cool as The Streich, but we hung out there for a little while and let Gretchen swim.
On our way north, we made a quick stop in Neenah and headed to Menasha next. We stopped for gas at the Menasha Marina and met Diane who we had heard so much about from Bob. Shes a really great lady who knows everything about the lake. We loved her and Menasha and plan on gong back to explore more.
It was really hot and we were wanting to get back in the water so we made our way to Waverly Beach. Waverly is another hot spot on the lake for boats to gather and party. This was our first trip to Waverly but it won't be our last! Waverly Beach isn't just a beach, but there's a bar and restaurant there too. The Vic Ferrari band way playing and there were hundreds of boats rafted together on the beach. Most of these boats had never seen us before and after we anchored a few of them came over and told us they thought we were the cops (HILARIOUS)! We spent the rest of the day in the water at Waverly. We met a lot of great new people* , including Bob the walleye guy and his family, who gave us three walleyes he had caught that day and the couple from Michigan tech and the criminal defense lawyer** who told his kids he wanted to give us his card!
*If you guys are all reading this, we are sorry we can't remember your names. We remember your faces, and swimsuits. You understand. We can't wait to see you all again!
**Thanks, for the offer, we don't think we need you yet, but we know who to call if we get into trouble! Great kids, by the way.
At the end of the day we headed out on the lake and tossed the anchor to wait for the fireworks. It was a beautiful night on the lake with an incredible sunset and from where we were anchored, we could see the Neenah and Menasha fireworks. After the fireworks we headed for High Cliffs and docked the boat for the night. We crawled in our bunks thinking we would have a nice peaceful spot to go to sleep however after the fireworks were over, at least 100 boats headed for the boat launch. We were surprised to see so many boats coming into the harbor since we had not seen a single boat while out on the lake. We were sure that the ramp would be highly entertaining to watch but both of us were too tired to get up to watch and we fell asleep to the gentle sounds of boat motors.
Considering how the weekend could have been a total bust, we kept ourselves together as always, and pulled off another incredible Plan B weekend.
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