Kymberli Mulford is the proud mom of a grade-schooler and high-schooler in the Chicago suburbs, and the proud grandmother of her now-grown stepson’s four children. When she’s not shuttling her sons from one activity to another, she works in the world of educational technology – as a district administrator, a learning facilitator, a consultant, and as a blogger at Onionskin. For more of Kymberli’s “mom” posts click here!

Today’s post has me a bit melancholy, in a bittersweet achy sort of way. This photo is one of my favorites of my boys. It represents the random and few times we have called everything to a screeching halt in our family of two parents working three full-time jobs and managing two boys’ school and extracurricular lives. It represents our time to disconnect from the crazy life we call normal, pack up the van, drive north away from the suburbs, and land at our favorite place to reconnect to each other.

The lake behind the boys is Lake Delton, and the beach they are combing is part of the property of Baker’s Sunset Bay Resort in the Wisconsin Dells.

I’ve been watching the news on this since Kate sent out a Twitter alert about it yesterday. I’ve studied the maps and discussed the situation with other Wisconsin vacationers we know. And it is… Just. Surreal.

It reminds me vaguely of the story of the Johnstown PA flood, one of the first books I ever read aloud with one of my very first classes twenty-odd years ago. I know that the causes were different, but the images of the flood are burned in my mind, the rushing water, the flotsam of every imaginable type. And the suddenness of it overwhelms me — some reports are that the entire lake drained in 45 minutes.

In my dismay over the past 24 hours, I admit that I have tried to call Sunset Bay, and the call doesn’t ever go through. Some of the news reports say that phone and electricity is being restored slowly in some areas. I’ve heard radio interviews of other resort owners up there, and they say they didn’t have flood insurance and were actually discouraged from getting it. They’ve lost everything, and reservations are being canceled every time they answer their phone.

I guess the reason that this feels personal is the fact that we are REALLY treated like family when we visit. We ask for and get the lakefront first-floor rooms we love. (We love being able to open the door and let the kids just go. No stairs to deal with, no lugging things back and forth. You’re already there.) This is a family business, passed down from the previous generation, and the daughters have worked hard to keep the place up and make important improvements. Sunset Bay is located “on the quiet side” of the lake, as far from the “strip” — so you can avoid the commercial world when you want, but it’s still within reason to head over there for a favorite place or two.

But my favorite thing about Sunset Bay is one tiny detail that makes all the difference in the world to me. Every morning, at the earliest light, you can look out onto the beach and see a few small figures and a few tall ones. The little ones squat down and reach into the sand and then jump up and shriek with glee, running over to share something with a bleary-eyed parent holding a styrofoam cup of coffee. Because every night, one of the employees heads out into the darkness along the water’s edge, and scatters thousands of shells for tots to find the next day. These are sand dollars and conch and starfish sort of shells. Those don’t come out of that lake. Surely Sunset Bay must have one very sweet wholesale connection with some shell company in Florida. A strange practice, but one to which they are committed; we’ve been staying there for five years, both peak and off-season, and they’ve never missed once.

I can’t begin to tell you what an impression that made on me. I don’t know how long ago this precious idea crossed the mind of one of the owners. But I do know that his daughters continue it today, and religiously. That gives me goosebumps.

It’s not advertised, it’s not something that even every visitor to Sunset Bay knows. It’s sort of an underground thing. Returning guests tell the new families, and it just sort of perpetuates.

I guess that, I hope is the theme this summer. The community will work to pull itself up by its bootstraps. Maybe some of the big-name resorts will chip in financially. We hadn’t made our reservations for the season yet — sort of waiting on my job situation — but we planned a long weekend at some point. I hope we can still do that. I hope Sunset Bay pulls through. I hope the regular visitors “tough it out” with the owners for this season. I hope that the little things — like being quietly reliable, both as a resort owner and as a guest — can perpetuate. Sort of like the silent delivery of the seashells in the night.