A giant lily pad, frozen custard and time travel

Summer started out with a bang here at Golden Lake, due to an unusually warm and sunny Memorial Day weekend.  My son-in-law, who is a big kid at heart, delivered a truckload of beach toys to entertain the kids this summer and we're not exactly talking buckets and beach balls!  Our tiny lakeside yard now has 4 kayaks, 2 stand up paddle boards and a giant Lily Pad which is definitely the biggest hit so far.  It's a huge floating foam pad for kids to jump up and down on, leap off of and climb back on.......over and over, until exhaustion, hypothermia or both takes over.

The Lily Pad

The day was topped off with pizza at the picnic table.  The girls and their parents headed on home, but my son and his two boys wanted us to take a trip to a local drive-in for sundaes with them before they headed back.  I pass this popular spot often but haven't stopped in years.  I certainly wasn't prepared for the groovy trip back to the 60's!

The Kiltie has been around forever.   It's somewhat murky origins are estimated to be in the late 1940's having supposedly been started by a man of Scottish origins.  Hence the name, The Kiltie and the short plaid skirts.  I vaguely remember a few trips there with my parents when I was a child and they took me along on weekend drives out to lake country, but my clearest memories of hanging out there are during the summer I was 15 years old.  I had met a  boy who was a couple of years older than me, and my protective parents actually let me date him that summer of 1963.  Besides being really cute, his family lived on a big lake 30 miles from Milwaukee, and he was a competitive water skier.  He also had his own car which spelled FREEDOM to me. 

He frequently picked me up to spend the day at the lake water skiing.  Often our date included a stop at The Kiltie before driving the half hour back to Milwaukee to take me home.  Sometimes he let me drive his car on the back country roads, but I recall being a rather slow learner as I narrowly avoided the ditches and careened along the winding roads.  I think I did  all right when it came to the parking and kissing segment of our dates, because he seemed somewhat more interested in that activity.

Anyway.....back to the present.  We drove into the parking lot of The Kiltie and the cars were lined up 2 deep at almost every spot.....and they just kept on coming.  We had to park on the outskirts of the lot and walk up to the window to place our order.  If you are lucky enough to get a parking spot in the front row, a cute and cheerful car hop in a very short plaid skirt will come and take your order.

Luckily, I had grabbed my camera at the last minute and decided to take some photos.  As I wandered around, I realized that since my date with the cute water skier.....absolutely nothing had changed at the Kiltie.  Except for the newer cars, it's as if the place is frozen in time.  So along with some incredibly good frozen custard, I got a little trip in a time machine.  

Former husband with our two grandsons and our oldest son.

As for the cute water skier......he only lasted through my 15^th summer.  The next summer I got my driver's license and a little white mustang to go along with it.  I had my own ticket to freedom and suddenly he didn't seem quite so interesting.  Besides, I discovered he wasn't the best kisser anyway.