Camping with the Merkley Family

Lake Walcott was our destination. We met Dave, Shelly & David at the campgrounds around 8ish. We had been there for almost an hour getting things unpacked and dinner ready. (mmm... ribs...) Here they come, David is driving the Explorer towing the boat. David is DRIVING??!! What the heck?! He was just in 5th grade... wasn't he? Dave was in his monster truck trailer in tow. Yea, they made it safely. After all the hugs and niceties, set up and dinner time. Talking around the fire then beddiebye.

Friday was sunny and beautiful. After a "late" start (9am) we had some awesome breakfast burritos (thanks Carl!). We goofed around and headed to the boat to take it for a spin around the lake. One little prob, the battery was dead. No biggie, just jump the sucker. After a jump and pre-trip we were on the water. David, Calista & Dave tried their hands on the tube. What a fun time! David tried a couple of times on the wakeboard. He was doing pretty good for his first time out. The storm clouds from the south were pushing in pretty fast so we had to call it a day. It was past lunch time anyway... After lunch we played a few hands of a fun card game called NERTS. It's like group solitare on crack. Fun for sure!! The girls LOVED it too. The guys went fishing, David caught a good sized bass that was TASTEY!! We were eating it while it's heart was still beating on the cutting board. That's fresh! Sick, but fresh. Yummy carne asada burritos/tacos for dinner and more time to catch up on the happenings.

Saturday was fun with the guys and little girls out fishing along the shoreline. Shelly and I gabbed and took the dogs for a walk around the park. What a nice walk under the trees with the birds singing above. Lunch time and then fishing from the boat. Shelly and I reluctantly agreed to go along. We then figured it would be nice for all of us to just hang out together, so what the heck... We packed up the poles, bait, drinks and snacks. While searching for a good spot using the sonar fish finder thingy we were floating a little closer to shore. Dave tried to restart the boat, but low-and-behold... click, click, click... OH NO!! THE BATTERY SHE DIED!! Well the rocks were coming up closer and faster than we would have liked, so Dave & Carl jumped in just to stableize the boat from running ashore. I called Kevin to hop on the computer and search for a phone number for the Parks & Recs for the lake. Dave ran up on shore to see how far from the campgrounds we were. Carl in the mean time just called the local police. They're used to this kind of call I guess. In probably about 30-45 minutes they were giving us a jump start. That's all she needed. Then to shore we headed. No fish on this trip...

Our weekend ended too soon. We're making plans to visit eachother's homes during the summer. But, that will be too long in between... We really missed them and are so glad that we had the opportunity to hang for a few days with them. Thanks Dave & Shelly for the fun weekend!!!

You can see the pictures with this link. Enjoy!