Day 3 Tourist - Lake Geneva

Wednesday, August 06, 2014
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, United States
Today we drove down to Lake Geneva, a lake near the Illinois border, and had a ride on the mail boat. You might have seen this on TV - it's been on news and travel programs. Click here to see one from NBC Nightly News. 

 
 
 This is one of the few places where mail is still delivered by boat. The mail boat goes slowly past the pier, the mail jumper jumps off, runs and puts the mail in the box and runs and jumps back on the boat before it's past the pier. Sometimes they miss, though ours didn't. The captain explained that the boat has to keep moving because if it stops he can't steer it, and if it bumps into the dock the dock will be damaged or destroyed and he will get a nasty phone call.

The mail jumpers are high school and college kids. These two were brother and sister.


   
 
This lake is almost completely surrounded by the most amazing mansions. This was where all the rich folks from Chicago came to build "summer cottages" for themselves. Marshall Field, Wrigley, Swift, Pabst, Nabisco, I'm forgetting a bunch.... but all the rich families who founded business and industry are represented here. It was an amazing boat ride, what with the amazing scenery AND the mail jumpers!

 
   

The guy that built the biggest palace on the lake (because it WAS a palace) - after the Chicago fire he went and bought up a whole bunch of the land cheap. People thought he was nuts, that Chicago would never rebuilt. He ended up owning and eventually selling, most of the land which is now the Chicago Loop. But he only lived in his palace for 6 years before he died. Now it has been turned into 6 luxury condos.


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