Utah Day 21- Fishing with Grandpa

Everyone,

This is probably the main event of our trip. Since last year, my dad and I have been planning this fishing trip to our regular lake in the Uinta Mountains. When I was in high school, we would go every year (or close to it) to Beth Lake. We fished some, hiked some, and mostly came back empty handed. I think I've only ever seen a fish caught from there 3 or 4 times. But we still go because we love the lake and love the tradition.

Last year we tried to go to Beth Lake with Butterfly and start going with her. But it was so early in the season that we got near it and couldn't drive the car any further without chains. The snow was very deep. And I bet the water was still frozen in some places. We settled for walking around Trial Lake that year. My dad sunk to his hips in snow that time and we figured we should probably go before we lost Butterfly in a snow drift. On the way down, we saw a sign for a little fish farm and thought it would be good to stop and let Butterfly actually catch a fish. We did. Butterfly talked about it for months after.

So this time we planned to go up to Beth Lake, fish for a bit, and then stop back down at the fish farm and catch a few more fish. Best friends Mink and Spider decided to come along. We got a late start. Okay, a really late start. I think we left over an hour after I had planned. By the time we got up to the Uintas, there was time enough for a short picnic at the lake instead of actual time spent at the lake.

And by the time we got to Trial Lake (about 20 minutes down from Beth Lake) we decided to just stop. So we had another visit to Trial Lake this year. Minus the 5 feet drifts! But it was just as cold, if not colder. Wow it was cold. We had planned on eating at the lake and ended up eating in the cars because we were so cold. My mom took the old sleeping bag that we had brought up to sit down on and wrapped it around herself to keep warm. This was the sleeping bag that had been sitting in my parents garage for ages. This was the same sleeping bag that my mom said it was a good thing none of us had to sleep in it and we were just using it for ground cover. She wrapped her self in the thing. It was that cold.

Dad and Butterfly did a few casts out into the lake, we froze and ate lunch in the car. We then proceeded to drive the wrong way home and realized that they have finally paved the road to Beth Lake and we probably could have made good time going up there. Oh well.

We stopped off at the fish farm and got all set up to fish. All it is is an old guy who lives there and has 2 ponds. One with big fish, and one with little fish. He and his wife were sitting on the porch in their rockers as we drove up. He smiled when he asked us if we wanted worms. He left us alone next to his ponds as we fished. He smiled when we cleaned the 2 fish we caught. He smiled when Juice caught a fish with his bare hands! He waved us on our way from his porch. I don't know why but I've been thinking about him and thinking he probably has a very good life.

The two fish we caught were big; a 14 inch and a 16 inch trout. It took us maybe 20 minutes to catch them. We gave them to my in laws who love fish. Juice wanted to know if the guy had actually cleaned them because they were still thrashing around as he gave them to his parents. That was over an hour since they had been caught. Let's all say it together: eww!!

After fishing, we cleaned up and went to a party at my Uncle's house. They have a new baby horse and I got to pet her and run my hands over her sweet baby horse spiky mane and pet the other horses. I miss being around them. (The horses and my family.)

We tried to take some family pictures but they didn't turn out all that great. Still, we tried. We also tried to get all of the great-grand kids together for a picture and that was funny. In every picture someone was blurry except for the two oldest kids who could actually hold still. It was still very difficult to do with 4 infants (all boys!), 3 pre-schoolers (2 boys and Butterfly), a toddler (girl), and 2 school aged kids (girl and boy). I think we got one okay one. We stayed longer than I wanted to but had a good time anyway. We stayed up way too late trying to get everyone to bed. (Which is why this is 3 days late. It also put me late for all the other posts and now I have to play catch up which I hate! This is why I'm kind of terrible at writing in my paper journal all the time. I hate missing days and then I feel bad I miss them and want to go back and write about them but I'm irritated that I feel like I have to do that so I just don't and then I never write.)

We had a great time fishing and a great party after!

Safire