Clear Lake

We decided to head for the hills this weekend.  We reserved two "rustic cabins" and found some partners in crime.  Tommy and Julia are several years older than Jude, but the three kids bonded over a love of fishing.  They spent countless hours casting from this picnic table into the road, trees, and anyone unlucky enough to walk in their path...  It was a little challenging to share two fishing poles among three kids, but they worked it out.


Meanwhile, the dads and Ada worked on their ringers at the horseshoe pit, conveniently located right between our cabin and the lake.


Our "two bedroom cabin" consisted of one room with an open loft and a hospital curtain partitioning off a small area of the main floor.  Surprisingly, we all slept really well.  Jude LOVED sleeping in the loft by himself, and especially loved climbing up and down the ladder and throwing things at us from his perch ten feet up in the air.  We only had a few heart attacks when he got careless too close to the edge.


I managed to get a few good close-ups of the kids this weekend.


Ada is loving her George these days.


Jude and Tommy disappeared for a while this morning, and when we found them they were playing in the greenery between our cabins.


Clear Lake itself is gorgeous, with blue and aquamarine water so clear and cold that you can see ancient preserved trees haunting the bottom of the lake.  We were sorry not to have any real fishing gear, as the lake is stocked and the fish seemed to be biting.  One afternoon during nap time, the dads took Tommy up to the Great Spring to see the source of the lake.  Getting there is a bit tricky, as you have to paddle the canoe up a short set of rapids (they were too much of a barrier for us when we tried it again the next day).  We also went on a hike around the lake while the kids slept on our backs.  The trail was beautifully maintained and we were passed by several mountain bikers.

Another highlight was roasting marshmallows over the campfire.  Curious George roasts marshmallows when he goes camping, so Jude knew what to expect.  He was the talk of the camp with his forked stick and contagious excitement.  Luckily for us, Jude vastly prefers roasting marshmallows to eating them.  In the end, I think he ate one and roasted about twenty.  A perfect ratio.