Water ski mag N/A

[Richard]

I read the current issue of Water Ski in the doc's office today. A picture of Ron Scarpa barefoot on one foot being towed behind an ultralight got me thinking of Lance.

Also, remember the movie, Field of Dreams? Imagine, instead of carving a baseball diamond out of the cornfield you excavate for a lake and put up home sites around the lake. Just 20 miles from where the movie was filmed a farming family did just that. Evidently, it wasn't just their idea as there are lots of lakes cropping up exclusively for the waterskiing family.

 

[Frank Browne]

Not trying to hijack the thread, but you reminded me of an article I read back in the late 60's or very early 70's in Field&Stream or Outdoor Life or Sports Afield, I don't remember which, about creating duck ponds using 55 gal drums of diesel oil and ammonium nitrate fertilizer as an explosive. It was a pictorial "how to" article. Betcha won't see that kind of stuff anymore.

 

[gismo]

I read the current issue of Water Ski in the doc's office today. A picture of Ron Scarpa barefoot on one foot being towed behind an ultralight got me thinking of Lance.

Also, remember the movie, Field of Dreams? Imagine, instead of carving a baseball diamond out of the cornfield you excavate for a lake and put up home sites around the lake. Just 20 miles from where the movie was filmed a farming family did just that. Evidently, it wasn't just their idea as there are lots of lakes cropping up exclusively for the waterskiing family.

Yep, people have been making ski lakes for many years. Some of the first were in California where ski-able lakes were hard to come by, but lately it's often done to get away from bureacratic interference with skiing as well as to eliminate conflicts with other recreational lake users. I live on a fairly small public lake (with limited access) which suits my skiing needs pretty well although I went through several years of fighting with the local government and a few vocal neighbors (this is not much different from the airport neighbor thing) who insisted I was ruining their life by skiing on "their" lake.

I have several friends who've built ski lakes, some for personal use and some for profit. One of them is doing this full time in the Midwest, I don't know if he's making much money at it yet, but he's completing his third project this spring, the first he's done with two lakes. Almost all waterski tournaments are held on man made lakes these days although Minnesota (land of 10k lakes) is still siting tournaments on small public lakes. Of course building a lake itself comes with bureacratic issues as well. One friend in Wisconsin purchased a large tract of planted pine forest out in the middle of nowhere and was halfway through a lake project on it when the county decided he needed a permit and refused to give him one. He's since built a lake elsewhere.

The cost of these projects runs anywhere from a few hundred thousand to several million bucks not counting the houses.