Flash forward to today: I just got back from another week in Canada, and realized that it has been 4 years since my last trip! 4 years! That's the summer before I went to Australia, before I even started keeping an online journal. This is kind of crazy for me.
I also won't be able to go next year either if my plans to have a big awesome European adventure pan out (and I hope they do). But that also makes me sad because it really is an amazing vacation.
So lets get to the details of the trip. This year I went with my dad, grandpa, uncle Craig, uncle John and his sons Ryan (17) and Griffin (14), and my uncle Brad and his sons Ian (12) and Owen (10). On Friday July 29th I worked the morning, got home around 1pm, and had about 5 minutes before my dad and Brad and a couple of the boys picked me up. I had a lovely lunch of combos and diet mountain dew in the back of the packed van and entertained myself reading my Kindle during the ride to Hinckley, where we stopped at the casino to eat at the buffet and let grandpa get his slots on. Then continued on to International Falls and then Fort Frances, ON. Here we stopped at the motel for the night.
On Saturday morning we continued the drive up to ~Perrault Falls on Lake Wabaskang. We arrived at the dock and waited to get picked up by the boats from our camp (Peffley's). We had stayed here before (when I was like 13-14) but it was under different ownership at the time. We moved in to our cabins (Brad, John, and the boys were in Cabin 4 and the rest of us were in Cabin 3). After we got settled and got our poles set up and ate a quick lunch we got out on the water. Griffin rode in the boat with my dad and I and we got skunked that afternoon/night. It sucked because the first night we didn't catch a fish (dad might've caught one but I don't remember that clearly). Sunday it was just my dad and I (I think) and we did a bit better, catching a stringer full of walleye.
On Monday I fished with Grandpa and I ran the boat, dropped the anchor when needed, retied his line when it broke off, took off his fish, etc and so on and finally appreciated how much work my dad does for our boat (granted I tie my own line, deal with my fish, and can handle the anchor, but still). Even with all that work we both managed to outfish the rest of the boats out there. Tuesday I started the day with Grandpa again, but when the night rolled around it was just my dad and I again.
On Wednesday my dad and I and Brad and Ian went to Lost Lake - a 3/4 mile hike through woods (on a very narrow deer trail) carrying our gear to a couple of boats with a 3 and a 4 horsepower motor (small). It was an okay day - my dad and I caught a bunch of walleye and Ian caught a nice 30" northern pike (decently big) but it wasn't really the giant trophy walleye and northern we went there to catch. It was a good day though - we had a nice lunch on a rock and even saw a couple of loons dancing on the water (some sort of mating or territorial display).
Thursday we all (except Grandpa and Craig) took the boats up to a portage over a waterfall to a waterway over to Wine Lake. The boats were hauled over on rollers and we all just drifted down the water casting for northern. Ian was with dad and I and we were the first boat going down the way and definitely caught the most fish. It was really fun seeing the fish go for the lures and we also saw a couple of otters in the water. A bit before lunch time some dark clouds rolled in out of nowhere, complete with rain and thunder/lightning. We all motored back to the dock and took shelter under some trees while the storm blew over us. Unfortunately no one had any rain gear other than a couple of emergency ponchos so we all got rather wet. After the storm we ate our packed lunch while trying to dry off and then got back in the boats to catch more fish. We motored down to a bigger lake opening but didn't really catch much there so eventually we went back to the area we were hammering them at right around the corner from the docks. Our boat at the end of the day pulled in 42 fish (17 for Ian, 13 for dad, and 12 for me). It was definitely a good day. We went out again later that night and caught more fish (I think).
On Friday we had a pretty slow start to the morning and finally got out on the lake. This time Ryan went with my dad and I and we were all going out fishing for perch (we had filled our limit on walleye, came close to the limit of northern, and basically only needed more perch - we'd never fill the limit on those though because you can take back 50 perch per person, vs 2 walleye and 2 northern). We went over to a spot marked on our map as a good perch spot and anchored down in the weeds and used an underwater camera to look for the perch (pretty cool). We didn't find any in the first spot and I finally convinced my dad to go closer in to shore. We headed inward and at one point my dad wanted to stop but I made him keep going for awhile until I had a "gut feeling" that we were in the right place. We dropped anchor, put our slip bobbers out, and immediately started reeling them in. We dropped the camera down there and saw tons of perch just swimming around. We had such good luck there that the other 3 boats from our group came and joined us, crowding around the spot. We all caught a bunch of perch and ended up keeping 33 that were 8.5" or bigger (which is big for a perch). It was a very good day. Unfortunately we had to turn the boats in by 5pm so that was the last of the fishing. We had a nice steak dinner and played a cribbage tournament (grandpa and I won!) and packed up our stuff.
On Saturday we woke up early, eating whatever leftover food we could scrounge up (mac 'n cheese for me), packed up anything that needed to still be packed up, cleaned up around the cabins a bit, and then hauled our stuff down to the docks. We were told to have our stuff down by 7:30am ready to head out by 8, so we were ready and stood down there taking last pictures and watching a pelican out on the lake and a crawfish right next to the dock. Eventually another group joined us down there, a group who was supposed to be heading out after us. But when they got down there the worker there started loading their stuff into the boat! They got loaded first, taken back first, and dropped off all before us who were supposed to go first and were ready way beforehand. I got so ticked I had to go back up to the cabin and hang out there with the camp dog (Sienna - adorable) and the boys. But eventually we got dropped off back at the vans, loaded up, and got back on the road. We stopped at a few gift stores but I didn't really find anything I liked other than a really cheap lame pin and eventually some post cards. Long drive, stopped at a Subway/DQ to eat lunch, kept driving. Eventually we made it to my place where I got out and said farewell to the guys. I took my stuff in and then went to go pick up my rats from my coworker who was nice enough to watch them for me while I was gone.
The rest of the weekend, such as it was, was not very exciting. I realized that I had left my wallet in the van so I drove down to Cannon Falls on Sunday to meet my parents and pick it up, along with 2 VHS tapes worth of Shark Week episodes and a VCR to watch them on - Thanks Gramma! We met at the DQ there - 2 blizzards in 2 days is A-Okay with me! Later that night I went and hung out with Nathan, Chris, and Nathan's brothers Brian and Kevin.
Then of course today, being Monday, I had to go back to the dreaded workplace. It's always so difficult going back to work after a nice vacation. I didn't sleep well the night before so I had a very tired semi-queasy day at work, but I got through it. Tomorrow will be even more trying - we have a lot of things to get done and I'm not feeling all that much better. I did take a nap tonight that was supposed to last an hour and ended up lasting 2. When my alarm went off to wake me up I was initially convinced that it was 8am and it was time to get up and get ready for work. I was very relieved to finally realize that it was 8pm and I was just napping.
Anyway, not much else to report. Tomorrow I'm going to go see Bridesmaids again (at a cheap theater) which should be pretty fun. Jordan (roommate) is going on a weeklong vacation in Alaska next week, and I'm going camping with Vicki and Sybylla the 20-21st. The following weekend I'm hoping to go to the Renaissance Festival (with Nathan and his dog Jackie, and Belle if I can manage to sneak her in) and then of course the weekend/ during the week after that is my birthday and when I move in to my new apartment. During all this I have to finish my genetics, hopefully woman up and take the dang GRE, and possibly get some volunteer action in. It's going to be a busy August, let's see how well I keep this updated.
Wish me luck!
