Day 11 (18th): Morning/Early Afternoon on Gull Lake, Late Afternoon/Evening on West Fox Lake with the Riersons

Hello Everybody,

Today we decided to live a full day in half the time at Gull Lake, and then another full day in half the time at West Fox Lake. Why not? We're on vacation! ;-)

As Nick had still not caught his Northern Pike, he asked me if we could go fishing again -- of course I said yes. I truly understand the bug that bit Nick -- it was the Minnesota fishing bug, specifically the Northern Pike fishing bug! We headed out early that morning to our favorite NP spot on the other side of the lake. Unfortunately, we ended up with nothing but a few rock bass -- Nick's Minnesota version of Moby Dick would continue for another time...

Jill, Natalie, Jake and Josh had other plans. They had signed up for water skiing and tubing and were ready and raring to go. You know Jill is a *big* water fan, especially on a speed boat, with the water spraying by the side of the boat and the wind in her hair. Jill was extremely happy to be on the boat, and although she couldn't ski because of her recent jaw surgery, she has taken some *amazing* pictures of the kids while they were doing there thing on the boat. Below are some of the pictures Jill took of the kids on the boat, as well as a couple with Jill in them (finally).



































































After a very full morning and one last boat ride from 1-2 pm, we headed up to the town of Fifty Lakes where Jane and Don's cabin was located. We arrived at the cabin about 3 pm and what a wonderfully warm welcome we received from Aunt Jane and Uncle Don! The cabin was beautiful (we didn't take any pictures of it unfortunately) and West Fox Lake was everything you imagine a northwoods lake in Minnesota. After a tour of the cabin we headed down the flight of outdoor stairs to the lake for a ride on their pontoon boat. We rode around this lovely little lake, saw a bald eagle's nest and actually saw the bald eagle in a different tree opposite the nest, and then headed back to the cabin so we could go visit Lacy at the camp where she was a camp counselor. Below are some of the pictures on the pontoon boat:

We drove the 15 or so minutes to Lacy's camp and got to spend a few minutes with her. What a nice young lady!! She is a counselor at this Christian youth camp, where she is responsible for a cabin full of high school students. The activity list at the camp was amazing and although she had a lot of responsibility for these kids, she seemed to take it all in stride and was pretty comfortable with it. I am only sorry we had such a short time with her...next time perhaps we'll have more time.

After our visit we headed back to the cabin for a fish fry dinner. While Don prepared dinner, the rest of us went down to the dock to fish. All I can say about that experience is WOW! We had the *best* luck catching panfish (sunnies and crappies) off the dock. The fish were everywhere, and it was all I could do to help the kids bait their hooks and take off the fish they caught. JOSH was the big fisherman of the day, as he seemed to catch a fish on *every* cast. We were fishing with bobbers and worms...some of my favorite kind of fishing! The kids had a blast.

The something truly amazing happened. A giant snapping turtle came right up to the dock to visit us. Jane said that this turtle had never come so close to the dock before, so we were very fortunate to get such a closeup view of this prehistoric animal. The turtle was as big as Josh, and had a sharp snout and an armored tail that looked like an Anklyosauria dinosaur's tail! The turtle came up to examine the fish we had caught and put in the fish trap, and actually got his claws caught in the chain links of the trap. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it to share with you but Aunt Jane does -- I will either get them digitally from her or scan in the hard copies that she gave us so I can share them with you.

Well gotta go -- ready for bed!

Peace,

Brian