With my wife away to NYC last weekend hanging out with her cousin in Brooklyn, I figured the best way to keep the children busy was to keep them outside. I had mentioned something a couple weeks before about maybe camping out at Aunt Dixie's pond house and Hadley and Finn were all over that idea.
Little did I know at the time that packing for a an overnight camping and fishing trip take just about as much preparation and packing as a full scale expedition to a far away place. It was all well worth it though and by Friday evening we had quite a comfortable camp set up. I think that I had two hours in prep and then another two hours in tear down to get everything put away on Saturday evening.
Friday evening and all day Saturday were a mix of fishing off the dock, paddling, eating easy camp meals, and more fishing. We spent Saturday morning slowly paddling around the edges of the pond with Finn on the front of my Diablo Amigo and Hadley in the Diablo Chupacabra. I played guide pointing out spots for Finn to cast his small Zoom lizard at with a few bumps. He's just getting used to casting and working the softbait with his spinning rod and I had a good time watching him work.
Around lunch time we all met back at the pond house and packed our lunch and gear needed to make a push to the upper beaver pond area and spent several hours up there picking off a bunch of smallish bluegills on crickets. Hadley did some watercolor while Finn messed around at the beaver dam and did some more fishing. I sat back and took it all in. This is living.
Truth told, there are few better ways to spend a weekend than doing more of this and I suspect we'll be spending another weekend at the pond house very soon.
Little did I know at the time that packing for a an overnight camping and fishing trip take just about as much preparation and packing as a full scale expedition to a far away place. It was all well worth it though and by Friday evening we had quite a comfortable camp set up. I think that I had two hours in prep and then another two hours in tear down to get everything put away on Saturday evening.
Friday evening and all day Saturday were a mix of fishing off the dock, paddling, eating easy camp meals, and more fishing. We spent Saturday morning slowly paddling around the edges of the pond with Finn on the front of my Diablo Amigo and Hadley in the Diablo Chupacabra. I played guide pointing out spots for Finn to cast his small Zoom lizard at with a few bumps. He's just getting used to casting and working the softbait with his spinning rod and I had a good time watching him work.
Around lunch time we all met back at the pond house and packed our lunch and gear needed to make a push to the upper beaver pond area and spent several hours up there picking off a bunch of smallish bluegills on crickets. Hadley did some watercolor while Finn messed around at the beaver dam and did some more fishing. I sat back and took it all in. This is living.
Truth told, there are few better ways to spend a weekend than doing more of this and I suspect we'll be spending another weekend at the pond house very soon.
5 comments:
I camped my entire youth, and I can't say I ever fished in my pajamas. Nor have I ever seen anything quite like the Pond House!
A spectacular and inspiring weekend. Can't wait to do something like that with my kids.
FA...treasure the time with your children. I'm really trying to make sure that I take as much as these trips as possible.
A kid fishing in his PJs....how awesome is that!
J
Amazing post, it's kinda hard to be jealous of that one.
Great post... doesn't get any better than kiddie time!!!
Post a Comment