Conway's Sandy Beach Resort...

Conway's Sandy Beach Resort on Big Lake near Bemidji, Minnesota.  It was magical.  Really.  It was.  Also the place I have never felt closer to God.  In fact there has been no place more magical to me.  My parents started taking me there when I was 5.  I do not remember what year our last “family vacation” was taken here, but it is the reason that I fell in love with Minnesota.  Our cabins names were Shady Rest, Maple and Sunset.

I am not sure how we arrived at this destination all those years ago except that I think Dad’s Aunt and Uncle had a cabin down the road and that is where he used to go when he was little.  So eventually we all ended up at Conway’s. 

The Owner’s, Chuck and Blanche were two of the most genuine people you would ever meet.  The most wonderful thing about being here was that you felt like you were staying with family.  Eventually they became family.  Several years later their son and daughter in law (Chuck and Jan) would take over who were carbon copies of Chuck and Blanche and I would meet their daughter Dana, who would drastically change my life.

So much of my childhood was based around these two weeks of the year.  I would imagine we probably only initially started with one week…which was never enough.  Eventually it turned into a month, but mom got 2 weeks alone!  It was her happy place.

We shared this place with many other family and friends.  Mom’s side and Dad’s side.  It was 2 weeks of the year that I actually saw my parents happy.  It was amazing.  It truly is hard to explain to anyone unless you have experienced it, what being here meant.

Every summer for so many years, this is where I went.  I met and made lasting friendships here.  I learned how to fish how and how to drive a boat and row a canoe.  I learned how beautifully haunting the sound of a loon could be.  I learned the value of a sunset.  In fact I have a thousand pictures of sunsets here, that may look the same to most people, but no two were ever the same.  I had my first lollie here…a sucker (candy) that I cannot find to this day, but was something I saved all my coins for.  It was where I learned to play Annie Annie I Over and Ditch.  It was where I first played softball with a ball about as big as my head.  It was where I played in many badminton tournaments.  I cleaned my first fish.  It was where I first went fishing alone.  It was where I first played spoons, and crazy 8’s.  So many memories.  But most importantly where I first “felt” God. 

The red, or maybe it was green, bench down on the beach was my favorite place to sit and stare.  And stare and stare and stare.  I loved to watch the diamonds and stars skate across the water on a day when the water was pretty smooth but had just enough ripple to make the sun dance.  I consider it something like watching a fire, mesmerizing, enchanting.  I could go “away” for hours and never leave the bench.

There is a smell about Northern Minnesota that does not exist anywhere else I have ever been.  Probably a combination of all the pine trees, lakes, fresh air.  But when I would get to Walker, Minnesota, I would have to roll down the window and breathe it in.  I seriously think it is easier and healthier to breathe the air up there.  It completely cleans the junk out of your lungs.

I cannot put my finger on or express into words why I felt closer to God here, it is something you have to experience.   And we all probably have, at some point and some place in the world.  If you believe in God.  If you don’t, to each their own.  I have never felt so loved…so embraced…SO SAFE.  I couldn’t do it justice to try to explain it.  So I won’t.  But I did.

The resort has since closed, all the cabins sold to the Conway family.  Dad’s side still goes up about twice a year and stays at the resort next door.  It may be the only one still operating on the lake.  I miss it.  I miss it like you miss the death of a loved one.  I think about it often.  I will see something or feel something or even smell something and if I close my eyes I can be right back there.  Several times in the fall, on a gloomy rainy day, with a chill in the air, Sister will say “it feels like Minnesota in August.”  Her memories of the place are nowhere near mine.  On a gloomy rainy day in Minnesota I would curl up with a book and listen to the rain on the roof of the cabin until it lulled me to sleep, because rain on any other roof doesn’t sound nearly as wonderful.  Rainy days didn’t bother me. 

For so many years I was only able to experience the resort for the first two weeks in August, or at least the month of August.  And then when I graduated college, Dana (who was living down by the cities) gave me the best gift a person could ever give a human being and allowed me to stay with her and her daughter while I did my internship in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Eventually I got hired there permanently and she let me stay with them again until I could get my own place.  Without this act of kindness, I honest to God could not have afforded to begin what would be some of the best years of my life.  I hope she knows how much that meant to me and how much it changed my life.  I would spend many days up at the resort with Dana and her family and would eventually get to experience it in all seasons, which is just as amazing, but never quite as special as it felt in August. 

I hope to get back there someday.  To just sit.  I would do something that silly.  Drive 14 hours to sit on the beach at a lake in Northern Minnesota.  It is not like any other lake I have ever been on and trust me when I say I have been on many.  It truly is my happy place, no other place has ever compared.  I think about it often.  Wish I could teleport myself there sometimes and sometimes wish more than anything I could get my mom back there even for just a few days.  To see her face when she got there would be just about the best scene I could imagine.

Where is your happy place?