Steamy summertime

Saturday was a deluxe and sultry day in Nodak. And Minnesota.
A friend and I made a Lakes Country jaunt yesterday. What was intended to be a couple of hours in the woods, ended up being all day long. Sweet.
We visited Lake Melissa and, of course, old reliable and HUGE Lake Cormorant.
I love lake country around here. Fire flies at night and water puppies and dragon flies in the day. Jet Skiis in the day, and the haunting cry of the loon at night. A keg of beer and a campfire. That's why Gawd created Minnesota.
I have a beef with the way they do their "cabins" or "cottages" as they're referred to. I think we could aptly call many of them "Lake Castles." The size and the ostentaciousness of these abodes doesn't bother me as much as the inappropriateness of the design.
I think that along Minnesota shoreline, (more shoreline miles than the entire U-S,) we should have codes on the type of homes that are built. Call me wacky, but I think a home alongside a Minnesota Lake should LOOK LIKE A 'LAKE PLACE!' That's all. I don't care if it's ten-grand or ten-million, it should look like it belongs THERE.
It should look like a Minnesota Lake Cabin. Not like a SOUTHWEST ADOBE VILLA. Not like a MANHATTAN APARTMENT BUILDING or an ENGLISH CASTLE.
Those that build these mansion, adobe abodes or some other other-world kind of living place NEVER, EVER stay at the place. They come out on Memorial Day and visit again on Labor Day. They leave their symbols of conspicuous consumption on the lake shore, unvisited and unwelcoming. Their neighbors never get to see the Dallas-Fort Worth owner except when he flies in with his amphibious aircraft to grab a pack of smokes from the 'fridge and jets back to whatever other palace he departed.
I promise, when I make my first million, my lake place will look like a small, inobtrusive cabin with a porch, a hammock, a lawn swing, a dock, a dog, maybe a patch of poison ivy and NO COPPER ROOFS or electric gates allowing entrance. Maybe I'm a bit of a hick, but I hate the look of money so obviously plastered on our lake shores. I prefer the pristine to the porcine.
And, another thing, I want the Minnesota legislature to try to require lakeshore developers to include mandatory camping sites in the proximity to any new major projects. You have to be a gazillionaire to afford a place on a lake these days. Campgrounds are disappearing. I think the common folks should be allowed to visit the lakes for an overnighter without have to invest a lifetime into the privilege. A new development of 20 acres? One acre should be open for common folks to pay for the privilege to throw out a sleeping bag, tent, or camper for a night or two.
One more thing, I like what's happening on Minnesota lake shore far more than what's happening further west where Californians are buying up Montana, Idaho and Wyoming mountain top property, cutting the timber and putting up castles for all to see. I wonder when they'll put some cabins on The Tetons?