A Few Days in the North Woods

I've just returned from a place where I relax more easily than anywhere else on the planet.

I've been going to the North Woods of Wisconsin, up around the Minocqua/Woodruff area, since I was about six years old. Usually I head out in the late summer, which I plan to do again this year, but a couple of weeks ago a friend bought a boat (a sixteen foot Donzi, the little brother to the cigarette boats made popular on Miami Vice) and I felt it was my responsibility to be there to help him put it through its paces. So I slipped north for a couple of days this week or, what my dad liked to call, "an extra added dividend."

It looks like any other boat, doesn't it? Having never previously blown across the water at seventy miles per hour, however, I have three initial observations:

(a) At that speed, your eyes spin in their sockets like the symbols in the windows on a slot machine;

(b) Your lips become silly putty;

(c) The idea of having a "cocktail cruise"is laughable. Imagine trying to lift a drink to your lips but, instead, throwing it over your shoulder. At that speed, tortilla chips become lethal pellets.

Nevertheless, my time spent on the lake and among friends, listening to the loons, feeling the breezes through the pines, looking up at the crisp blue sky, was a marvelous getaway. I can't wait to return (as part of my book tour) in August.

I also couldn't resist posing with my very own copy of Every Secret Crime.