Spending three nights in the same marina was a record for
us, so we were ready to move on. We took
off around 9 am, en route for Vermilion, Ohio, which was about a three hour
ride. We had a nice wind and good sail
and shortly before arriving at our destination, we pulled the sails down and
stopped for a nice lake swim. Andrew
passed us along the way so had the docks organized for us, at the Vermilion
Yacht Club. We got tied up and headed
directly for the beach, as it must have been 35 degrees outside, so we were
ready to hit the lake. The club had
access to a semi-private beach, which was clean and great for swimming so we
spent a few hours soaking up the sun, then returned to the boats to get cleaned
up before dinner.
The clubhouse had excellent kitchen and bbq facilities so we
hauled our gear there and made a delicious meal. While waiting for things to cook, we sat on
the Adirondack chairs on the front lawn facing the channel watching the boats
go back and forth. Vermilion is probably
the most scenic boating town on the entire lake as is consists of a network of
channels weaving through the town and is home to many marinas. To give an indication of the boating culture
in this town, the central water tower, which rises high in the middle of
downtown, has emblazoned on it the letters “Vermilion Sailors” and an image of
an anchor.
After dinner we took the advice of a local
boater and walked down to the beach to an area called Linwood, which featured an
ice cream shop which quite literally propelled you back in time. They served malts, old fashioned ice cream,
had candy jars with prices varying from 25 cents right down to 2 cents, red
upholstered booths, soda jerks, Slush Puppy machines and prices that were
simply way too low to be believed.
Outside the shop was a big park which had many kids play apparatuses and
a covered area with four lighted alleys of shuffleboard. And everybody looked to be well off, happy
and pretty much exclusively white. The
whole place had this strange, but warm, out of place feel, which started to
make more sense as we worked our way through the park and found an iron gate
barrier locking out the rest of the city living in present day from this
enchanted forest. As we exited the gates
there was a giant sign identifying this as Linwood Private Family Park with
access available to members only, or guests of members. As guests of the yacht club, we were allowed
access, but I guess it wasn’t available to the general public. We talked about this a lot after the experience,
and it certainly seems to be the rule that if you have money or status in the
US, you get the good stuff. If you have
no money and no status you get the crap.
An ugly truth or just a misguided perception? All I can say is, I feel lucky we were on the
good side of the gate, at least for a little while.
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