Independence Day Weekend

The thing about Holiday weekends is that you shouldn’t really spend them at home. I live in a nice enough house, and I spend pretty much all of my time there. That’s because I don’t have another house, which is because a long time ago I chose to be a Realtor and not something else. But even though I don’t have another house, I like to spend summer holidays elsewhere, namely, near my parents’ house, which is, most fortunately, on the lake. I’d like to wish you a very joyous Independence Day Weekend, but the sad truth is that such a weekend isn’t really possible if you’re spending it at the home where you usually spend Wednesdays. Want to enjoy summer festivities? Let’s get you in a lake house.

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Lake Geneva shines on these sorts of weekends, and though there will be crowds, those crowds will be united in their common goal. Everyone wants to have fun. And that fun is easy to find here this weekend, just as it is on every weekend. We had a 5:30 dinner reservation for Gordy’s last night. It was good, as it tends to be. On the way out, sometime near 7 pm, the rumored wait for a table was an hour and a half. This is because everyone wanted to go there. Want to go somewhere where no one wants to go? The entirety of Michigan probably doesn’t have a wait.

This weekend there are things happening. Fireworks happen this weekend, even though they happen on most weekends if you happen to be my neighbors. They light fireworks without particular cause, presumably because they want to hear things go BOOM POP. I don’t really understand people that set off fireworks just because it’s some Saturday during some summer month, but such is life in the sticks. Tonight, July 3rd, the Grand Geneva will be shooting off their fireworks. It’ll be nice, so if you want a head start on the weekend festivities, the Grand Geneva will oblige.

Saturday morning there’s a pancake breakfast at the Williams Bay lakefront. I don’t like pancakes much, so I won’t be there, but if you love pancakes, you should go. It’s for some good cause, or maybe a rotary club, perhaps a Lion’s Club, I’m not sure, but assuredly the money raised will go to good use, or some use. That’s Saturday morning, and carb loading is a terrific way to make it through a holiday weekend at the lake.

Willie Nelson will be in town on Saturday, at the Cornerstone Shop in Lake Geneva. It’s a shop on the corner, where there used to be a Ben Franklin a few decades ago. Upon closer examination of the schedule, it’s actual William Nelson, and he’s an artist who is of some acclaim. His paintings look very nice, so if you’d like to stop by and meet him, perhaps have him sign something, that’d be great. Just don’t ask him to sing Whiskey River, because he probably gets that all the time and it stopped being funny right before the first time.

These are nice events, the pancakes and the Friday fireworks, and the artist stuff, but everyone knows the real interest is in the Saturday night fireworks in Fontana. These are the fireworks that you should be watching, because everyone else will. There are some keys to these fireworks to consider. First, if you can, please watch them from a boat. Do not let your boat captain be imbibing too much, because it’s a dangerous scene on the lake after dark, when that many boats are clustered on this big lake. Safety first, please.

But assuming you’re safe, then you have to hope that the wind falls flat, or at least that the wind blows soft from the West. The reason for this is that the thundering echo of the fireworks is a special delight, and if there’s an East or North wind, you won’t get the echo. Ideal booming echo conditions involve no wind, so here’s to a calm evening. For my neighbors, ideal booming echo conditions occur usually within a few minutes of my head hitting my pillow.

Sunday there are some things going on, but they don’t really matter. Sunday we’ll just hope for continued beautiful weather. Sunday, as an aside, is one of the weekend days that I’ll be working, the other being Saturday. So if you’d like to see some real estate, or just chat with me about real estate, I’ll make myself available for you. Please be safe this weekend, and please remember that Independence Day weekend is actually about something.


Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
– Thomas Paine

About the Author

I'm David Curry. I write this blog to educate and entertain those who subscribe to the theory that Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is indeed the center of the real estate universe. When I started selling real estate 27 years ago I did so of a desire to one day dominate the activity in the Lake Geneva vacation home market. With over $800,000,000 in sales since January of 2010, that goal is within reach. If I can help you with your Lake Geneva real estate needs, please consider me at your service. Thanks for reading.

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