lake geneva mail delivery

lake geneva from dinner table one evening

"Mail carriers are always in the swim of things in Lake Geneva, Wis., because they travel their delivery routes by boat. Every piece of mail arrives by special delivery.

CBS News Sunday Morning correspondent Bill Geist reports they've been doing it that way since 1873. He says it's a treasured tradition that could almost pass for a love letter.

Or an old postcard come to life, as a steam yacht known as the Walworth II, which also serves as the mailboat, slips across the clear, sparkling waters of the lake.

Geist says people in the town still enjoy the same simple pleasures they always have, in a timeless place where the arrival of summer is announced by the first mailboat."

- cbsnews.com


most of the pictures in this post are gray, gray, gray due to the cloudy day ... but click below for details on the lakefront mail delivery tour i went on while patrick was in training ...

lake geneva neighborhoods

in lake geneva, when this is what your neighborhood looks like (above),
there is a good chance your mailbox is located somewhere like this (below):

mail boxes on docks.
which means that mail arrives by boat.

here is the boat:

from cbsnews.com

mail delivery by boat is accomplished per a mail delivery person jumping off the moving vessel, then leaping back on. i secured myself a spot on said mail delivery boat, but did not have the best view from my seat. however, here are some shots from the side video cam (kind of hard to tell what is happening):

looking at the screen, the mail delivery girl is in red. here, she has jumped off the boat onto the dock, put mail in the box, and has just turned around to make her way back.

now running, running back to boat ...

leaping ... and, she made it!


like i was saying, i had a bad angle for pretty much ALL photos.


from my spot on the boat, the most unobstructed view was out the back.
yep, not the best spot.


but to keep going ...

some people waited on the dock for their mail:

and so did some dogs:
(i think christine&leslie are gonna like this one!)

yes, this fido is carrying the mail in his mouth! he goes out to the dock and waits until mail delivery comes -- it is then placed directly in his mouth and he then dutifully carries it home. he's been doing it since he was a pup!

it takes TWO AND A HALF HOURS to deliver the mail! so while en route, i took lots of photos of the lakefront homes.

after the great chicago fire of 1871 sent families fleeing to the north, lake geneva flourished. familie such as wrigley and wacker established estates on the lake, among many others. and the area became known as the "newport of the west" ...

here are the photos in a collage, but some were automatically cropped in ways that chopped out the home from the photo. sorry!

even though the weather was overcast, i loved oogling over the homes. and then wondering how so many multi-million dollar mansions could be so hideous!!?! it was kind of like spending an afternoon driving through beverly hills, but on a boat!