Sarah Palin's Lake Lucille

With all the big to-do about the Sarah Palin-Joe McGinniss flap, we decided to take an afternoon flight north and investigate for ourselves. We took off from Merrill Field in Anchorage and flew to Wasilla's Lake Lucille, the site of the media conflagration touched off by McGinniss' choice of summer housing and Sarah Palin's Facebook note. We circled down and the six-seat plane landed on the water, floating over to the location of the dispute.

Palin's house, with a huge facade of windows looking out at the lake, appeared empty. The Palins own property adjacent to their house, and we saw a pretty big house under construction there, although we didn't spot any workers. We also saw the 14-foot-tall fence that went up after the ex-governor became frustrated with McGinniss renting a home on the other side of her house. The fence seems to achieve its objective, keeping the writer from having much of a view of Palin's yard.

While the Palins weren't home, we did see McGinniss. The author was reading on the deck of the rental home, which had the flags of both Alaska and the U.S. hanging off of it. A small boat was tied to the dock. We pulled up the plane and asked McGinniss if he would give an interview. He stood up and shooed us off, then went back to enjoying his book. And with that, we pushed off and headed back to Anchorage.