Favorite Place

 -I used the favorite place prompt
-I'm a little under 650, suggestions on things to elaborate would be great


My dad is a very much a nature-lover type, and because of that, many of our trips are to various state parks or other natural attractions. Because of that, natural-type areas are my favorite places to visit. If I were to choose one, it would be Madeline Island in Wisconsin.

Madeline Island is a ten-mile-long piece of land in a collection of about twelve islands just off the coast of Lake Superior on the north side of Wisconsin. Similarly to a lot of other more nature-themed vacation spots, it's not extremely popular-- to get to the island, you have to get on a ferry boat.

My family first discovered the park when I was around a year old. As the story goes, my family was effectively homeless for a week or two when transitioning from an apartment in Urbana to a house in St. Joe, and we needed somewhere to stay in that time. So, my dad took advantage of this and embarked on a road trip, going to whatever looked cool in his atlas. What he spotted was a state park on Madeline Island. This park, named Big Bay Park after a bay on the east side of the island, is the most interesting natural area I've been to. Most people who visit the park camp overnight (or "camp" with RVs) as there is a lot to explore. The park has three main natural attractions. Now that I think of it, it's kind of crazy that the three are within walking distance of each other. Firstly, the beach. My father has often called this "the best beach in the world" and I'd agree with that. The water is warm, clean, and was shallow enough for my ten year old brother to be a couple hundred feet away from the shoreline. 

The second attraction is an in-land lagoon. It's about five times the size of the urban drainage ponds many of us live by, and is a cool place to visit for a few reasons. It houses a wide variety of natural wildlife and is easy ot explore with canoes you can rent at the place. My family has gone canoeing in the lagoon a few times, and I've had a few memorable experiences there-- crashing into underwater logs, sneakily splashing my brothers using the paddles, and more. 

The last attraction is the rock formations. Beginning only a few hundred feet from the beach, there are a series of crazy rock formations on the lakeshore, going for a mile or two. Not only are the rocks cool to look at, but many of them are easy to scale. Every time I visited the island, I've tried to make it the entire way going only on the rocks. I haven't made it yet, but I've made it farther every time.

While the natural attractions are an obvious reason to visit the island, there's a more general appealing aspect of the island-- isolation. With the exception of the library and a few restaurants, there's basically no way to get a solid internet connection as a tourist on the island. While many people would see this as a huge downside (and I definitely admit its frustrating for me as well), the lack of connection to the internet and social media for a week or two is a much-needed break for me. 
There are more implications of being isolated in general-- being away from friends, my home, and various other things makes me appreciate the comforts of living at home more. Since my first visit as a one-year old, I've been to Madeline Island twice. Each time has been a blast, and I can't wait to come back in the future.


Comments

  1. ChristelleMay 3, 2018 at 4:23 PM

    If you just need a little more length, I felt that maybe you could expand on the last paragraph some. Additionally, this is pretty minor but I thought that there are some paragraphs that should be put together. However, I don’t see much else that needs to be revised apart from some transitions in one or two places and the addition of a bit more reflection. This was an essay that I felt really worked well and I enjoyed reading it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AlexMay 4, 2018 at 7:10 AM

    I think that you did a really good job of conveying your love of the island. Most of the essay was description of the island, but through your description I feel like you conveyed the significance of the island to you, and something about yourself. Including more narration and reflection, might make the essay more complete and could help with your length concerns. Observation: your language when describing climbing on the rock formations suggests to me that you have visited several times, but you reveal that you have only visited twice when you weren't one.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hometown

I'm a little below the word count, so if there is anything I could expand on tell me Prompt I used: What marketing slogan would you use for your hometown? "Boring, but safe and athletic" is my hometown in a nutshell. St. Joseph, Illinois isn't all that interesting, and I think the common perception from outside isn't totally accurate. When I've talked about my hometown with my friends at Uni, there are two ideas that are inevitably brought up. To begin with, a lot of people have no idea where St. Joe is, despite it being less than miles away from Urbana. You'll pass it anytime you hop on I-74 and head east. But when I tell people it's a town ten miles away, the logical conclusion is that its a rural farm village in the middle of nowhere. This isn't accurate at all in the case of St. Joe, however. While it is a town completely separated from Champaign-Urbana, its more like a suburb than anything else. A very large part of the residents ar...
Read more

The Backyard

The prompt I responded to is: What objects tell the story of your life? Realized after I finished that a backyard isn't really an object, but I discussed some others so hopefully it's fine. Almost three years ago, my family moved from a small three-bedroom house to a significantly larger one. We've been happy the past three years, appreciating how much space we had compared to the older house. However, the old house had one thing that made it superior to the new house- a large backyard. It was in this backyard that I started many hobbies and activities that I continue to enjoy today. Bike riding is an activity I think I'm quite good at now, but it started with a struggle. My dad doesn't believe in training wheels, and it was because of this that I learned how to ride my bike in my backyard. For about a week straight during the summer after kindergarten, I was basically forced to learn how to ride my bike. I would put my feet on the pedals, and my dad would p...
Read more

The Land

This is another response to the "objects that tell the story of your life" prompt. I think there's some wordiness or confusing stuff here, so if you have any specific examples or tips on how to fix it, that would be great. I also want to know what sentences/sections aren't particularly important- I'd like to add some more specific memories but I'm over the word count by a *lot* currently. Sometime back when I was around the age of  9 or 10, my family purchased a new vehicle. I remember opening the shades in my living room and seeing the new Ford pickup truck in its dull golden glory for the first time. I was very excited, especially since I knew what it was for. Today, this truck represents a large part of my childhood that I look on happily. A little before this happened, I recall seeing a bag of dirt on my dad's office room. Yeah, just a bag of dirt. Young me was completely confused, and even more confused when my dad heated up the dirt in the oven...
Read more