I realized I haven’t updated since I got back from my fishing trip in Canada, and thought you might all like an update.
On August 25th I picked up Craig, a friend of my Dad’s son-in-law, from the airport. An hour or so later my Dad and Lyle (the father-in-law of Craig) arrived at my house.
We at my massive burgers that I love to make, and I packed, and we went to sleep.
5AM the next morning we took off. Arriving at Browns Clearwater West Lodge around 2pm, and were across the two major lakes and unpacked around 6 or 7.
The next several days were filled with lots of driving the boat around, sunshine, some rain, good eating of fried and boiled fish, and sleeping in late in the tent.
Some highlights included:
– Dad trying to find a portage to a smaller lake, which eventually devolved into he and I hiking through very dense woods until we found the lake, only to return and discover the guys in the boat had found the entrance marked with a stack of rocks about 300 yards down the shore.
– I did a good bit of reading in my spare time, mostly the Bible and “The Gospel of the Kingdom” which I should try to finish soon, so I can start some other books.
– Everyone but me caught some decent sized fish, Northern up to about 10 lbs and bass up to 3 -3.5lbs.
– Dad flipped the canoe trying to grab a rod and reel that slipped out of his hands. The upside to this is that it wasn’t me who flipped the canoe, which is usually what happens, so I got to mock him a lot for that.
– The sunsets were nothing short of amazing. They always are on the lakes up north, but still, that alone is worth the price of admission.
– I didn’t have to clean any fish, or even help clean fish. I hate cleaning fish, which is a big part of why I don’t fish much. The other guys on this trip were really helpful.
– having a campsite with pre-defined / dug crappers. Usually we dig our own holes….easily my least favorite part of these trips, so this campsite was a huge plus.
Some downsides:
– Lost my drivers license in the canoe flipping incident, as well as Dad’s $100 reel and the pole he made for his dad a long time ago.
– I hit my heel on the gas-cap of the boat trying to step in barefoot from a tall rock. This hurt a lot and I was still limping until yesterday.
– Dad is getting weird as he gets old…very spacey and hard to talk to cuz you can’t tell if he is listening or not.
– We had to go home early cuz Craig got sick! Easily the worst part of the trip. My Dad and I were so sad and disappointed.
So, we came out on Friday instead of Sunday, and drove back to Minneapolis, arriving at about 11pm at my house. Dad and Lyle left at 8am after Lyle dropped off Craig at the airport. Made for a very depressing Saturday until Josh Carlson and I went to see SuperBad (awesome BTW, and the squirrel-boy totally = McLovin), and a weird Sunday where I went to church by myself for the first time in a long time.
Sunday afternoon I hung up the canoe in the garage (Dad gave me a canoe!), and we did our fantasy draft. Most the guys were at my place, so there were 6 laptops sitting in my living room, which looked pretty humorous.
Monday I finished up un-doing all the stupid stuff Dell does to computers when you get them from them new, so that Lauren would have our new laptop (which finally arrived while we were gone) for school on Tuesday, and then hung out with Glynn, DC, and Cristin for a while before picking Lauren up from the airport.
All-in-all it was a great trip, and I feel like I got a lot of time to relax and talk to God about some pretty big stuff that has been weighing me down lately. And I would say after Saturday my disposition has been improving relative to some of the tough things going on in my life over the last few months. I’m still wrestling with some issues around the topic of theodicy, and someday I might actually post a really long post I’ve almost finished writing about it. But for now, I’m feeling a little more like I can try to trust God and his church again. And that is is why I decided to go to small group Tuesday with Lauren for the first time in a couple of months.