Jessica’s tips are very nice for the novice, but when you feel you’re ready to take your lakeside freeloading up a notch:
- Leave electronic devices, including your kids’, at home or at least in the car.
- Sole exception to #1, bring along Radica 20Q, good for deck or dock.
- Pack “Peterson Field Guild to Birds of North America.” Don’t hog it.
- Also, “Insects of the North Woods.” If you want to hog it, that won’t be a problem.
- Rise first and put on excellent coffee, which you brought along, to brew.
- It’s just coffee—no need to brag about it.
- If a loon calls after dark, claim to any children present that you are able to interpret its meaning, which is a lament for a lone canoeist who drowned many years ago on this very lake.
- Nap.
- If you know how, play cribbage. There’s a board somewhere.
- On leaving, forget your copy of “Peterson” on the mantle beside the binoculars.