A Lasting Trip to the Cabin

Favorite Vacation Moment

Smith Mountain Lake , OH

by winbaxsu March 11, 2008

Emma in the Lake

I don't know if this was my favorite vacation moment, but it is one that will forever live in my heart. My In-laws share a cabin with another couple. The cabin is on Leesville Lake, south of Akron and Canton in Ohio. My mother-in-law loved the cabin and would ask us to come and visit as often as we could. She, herself, would frequently spend weeks there.

Well, a few years ago on a trip to the cabin, she took the family to a little fall festival that was happening nearby. It was at a campground and we saw campers that had entered their decorations in contests, there was a re-enactment, a small petting zoo, face painting, crafts for sale, food for sale, and the like. My first son was just an infant, but he loved the sights and smells. She bought my daughter, myself, and herself little crowns made out of this tinsel-like material with stars on it. We wore it for the rest of the day.

It was a fun, relaxing, and family-filled weekend...going out on the pontoon, heading down to the little beach, long suppers.

We didn't know at the time that she had pancreatic cancer. We went in August and she passed away that December. We still go to the cabin a few times every summer and my daughter and I still have our crowns. We now have another son, whom she never met, but I feel a special connection to her when we go there, as if she can be with all of us, again. I always think of her when we are there and how much she loved the water and the woods.

So, that is my fondest memory. It was a very happy time and one I'll treasure forever.