May 22nd.

Yesterday was the one day I left my camera (cell phone) behind and it was the one day I really wanted it with me. We went down to Rowledge Pond just to hang out and it was the best time I have had on this trip. We tried catching frogs for about two minutes but I think I’ve lost my touch. I don’t know if I had more patience or grace or stealth as a kid but I definitely have none of those things now. Also, the frog pond was a steep-banked mudhole that I wanted no part of and the waterline was covered with super dry leaves. Those frogs are super smart for choosing that muck hole as their home – it’s like a fortress. So, we gave up on that pretty quick. But, the pond has a dock on it that’s nice to hang your feet off of. Which was a nice way to pass about two minutes until we got distracted by a bunch of mussel shells in the water. Greedy fat human? Or a neat pond creature I have not heard of? After Dad and Paula were done canoeing around the kids (we’re in out 20s but we’ll always be the kids on these trips) got their chance and we went around as close to the shore as we could. I had the honor of paddling, which is a feat in and of itself that we even made it around. But, we saw water snakes, some sort of water mammal (otter? Beaver? Muskrat?), turtles sunbathing, and we heard something huge drop off a branch above the water but we couldn’t see it and didn’t know if we wanted to from the sound of the plop. Then, the best part was when Dad and Uncle Frank took me out to teach me how to cast the bait-and-cast fishing pole. I was terrible. I mean, I still am terrible. But they were awesome and patient and gave me about an hour tooling around the edges of the pond. I probably casted that thing a hundred times and, near the end, started getting a little better. I only had a few casts that I didn’t need to unravel but, lo and behold, about five minutes before we were done, I caught the one and only fish of the trip. He was just a little guy and I swung him right over to Uncle Frank to de-hook. It was a large mouth bass and he did have a huge mouth, like on the fishing shows. But, he was less than a foot long. We weren’t going to keep him anyway, at least I don’t think that was the plan since there was nothing but the fishing pole and a cell phone in the boat. So, I told him that he knew what to look out for and better luck next time and plunked him back in the water. That made my night for sure. So, there’s that. Al and I got to make dinner when we got back to the house. I’d started some bread before going to the pond and had put it in Aunt Carol’s car to raise since it was super hot in there. It had done its job so we made the pasta mom always made us growing up and Dad made a salad. It turned into a decent dinner, if not a massive carbo overload. Delicious. And that was the day.