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Laurel
Laurel Lake
In 1987 we were diligently looking for someplace on a lake where waterskiing
was allowed. Matt was totally in love with the
sport in spite of it's short season in this area. We had a 15' boat with a 65
hp Evinrude and hated dragging it around to public launching ramps where Matt
could ski. Some of the places we looked at were beautiful but no skiing allowed;
others where skiing was allowed were either way too much money or unihabitable
by two legged creatures. At the time Matt was more or less delivering Pennysavers
and one week we were looking through the ads a couple of days before they were to
be delivered. One of the ads was for a 'country get away' at Laurel Lake in Pa.
We took a ride that afternoon and fell in love with the place. It was an old
trailer on a nice size, almost 1/2 acre (100' x 200') lot, with lots of trees and on a private
right of way back off the highway. It had no lake frontage of its own but
the right of way (40' wide) extended to the lake. If you've never happened to
see it, Laurel has two sections with a paved road (the Wilkesbarre Turnpike - don't
ask, I have no idea where the name came from) going between them. The larger part is
about 45 acres and 15' deep. The smaller part is about 15 acres and 6' deep. We're
on the little end, connected to the bigger end via a pipe (maybe 8' diameter) under
the road.
Even though Laurel is small,
motor boats were allowed and there was water skiing on the larger end. Add to this
the mere 14.5 miles from Echo Road to there and we had a potential winner.
We called the owner that evening and made an appointment to meet him there the
next day at noon. By 12:30 we had agreed on a price and shook on it. The next day
the Pennysavers were delivered and the owner received several more calls and
even one woman who offered whatever he was going to sell it to us for plus $5000,
sight unseen! Some people have perhaps an excess of money over grey matter.
Frank stood by his word to us and we were soon the proud and happy owners and
Matt was waterskiing. Due to the nearness, we often went out evenings after
school and work for a ski session. The biggest problem we had was that Matt had
gotten a kevlar competition ski and on that, the boat just couldn't get on plane
fast enough to get him out of the water until we put a whale tail on the boat and
Matt went to ski school. Between the two he was up and flying. He has amazing
stamina on skis and would go as long as the boat had gas.
The boat and the skiing ended after a few years, partially because Matt got heavily
into cycling
and partially becuse he grew to the point where it was just too hard to pull him
out of the water. They also started having problems on the lake with people who
drove boats like some do cars and ultimately a horsepower limit was enacted and
then tough restrictions on hours.
Well, thats the why and wherefore of how we happened to buy the place at
Laurel Lake and here's a (poor, old polaroid) picture of what we started with.
To see what we did, check out
First Porch at Laurel.
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