Vacation is Over

Saturday was my last day of vacation, so we decided to take the boys to Beaver Creek State Park to do some fishing.  The weather was hot, but after enduring 100 degree temps down in Virginia, 85-90 degrees here didn’t seem so bad :)

We pulled in to the picnic area that I used to visit with my family when I was a kid.  I remember my mom packing a cooler and we would spend the better part of the day playing by the creek here.

I remember that it could get quite crowded and there would be parked cars lined up along this road and the grassy area would be filled with families, picnics, and frisbee games.  It was sad to visit this place and see how empty it is now.  This was at 11 a.m. and hardly another soul in sight.  Times sure have changed…

Of course, maybe this isn’t quite the hot spot for picnics anymore…the whole area was riddled with droppings from this crew.  We decided to try this area of the creek for fish, but no luck here.  I did get some good pics though.

Within the first few casts, Gannon got his caught in the tree :)

This area was too shallow, so we loaded up and headed up creek a little to try another spot.

Apparently, the little ghost named ‘Somebody’ had taken an extra fishing pole out and laid it on one of the picnic tables here.  I thought that ‘Somebody’ only lived at our house, but I guess he follows us everywhere we go.  lol  I’m sure you other parents know what I’m talking about- ‘Somebody’ will leave messes in the kitchen, eat half the cookies in the cookie jar, leave cups in the living room, etc.  We didn’t realize the ‘Somebody’ took the fishing pole out of the van and laid it on the picnic table until much later in the day.  Hubs called the Park office and left a message about it, and they called him back and said it was turned in.  There are still honest people in the world! lol  I’ll have to make another trip down there to get it this week.

Anyway, we moved up the creek and passed some people set up for something?  I don’t know what was going on, but it looked interesting.

Of course, when it comes to my husband, we go somewhere with ONE objective in mind…that day it was fishing.  Not looking at the other sights in the park.  When I go to get the pole, we may be stopping at a few of the other things down there like this area…

an old lock…

and this area on the other side of the park…

This is one of the old mills.  You can’t go in, but I would at least like to walk around the back side of it. 

We did park again on this other side of the park and fish.  First right by the parking area, and then we grabbed our gear and traveled down one of the trails along the creek.  We were heading to an area called Gretchen’s Lock.

The trail was very narrow in some spots, and we stopped along the way to throw a line in, but after what seemed like a mile, we finally made it to Gretchen’s Lock.

You can read the tale on the monument if you want to enlarge the pic, but basically, she and her parents sailed over here from Ireland when Gretchen was an infant. Her mother got sick and died on the way over.  Her father ended up becoming the main engineer in building this lock and when Gretchen was 10 or 11, she contracted malaria and died.  With plans to return to Ireland eventually, her father entombed her coffin within the stonework of this lock until he left.  When the canal shut down, he removed her coffin and began the journey back.  Along the way, the ship sank in a storm, taking Gretchen’s remains and her father with it.

Over the years, there have been many reported sightings of seeing Gretchen’s ghost in this area.  I don’t know about that, but it sure is a beautiful area.  The stone walls of the lock are still there…

 

We wanted to walk in between the walls, but water lays down in there.  We had to walk back out and around it.  This is Calvin standing down in there.

One of the ends of the lock walls from up on the trail around it.

Down past the lock we finally found some good fishing water.

Talked to a few people who came by :)

I didn’t end up fishing at all.  I just sat on the bank of the creek and soaked in the serenity of it all.

They caught a few small mouth bass, and after a few hours, we headed back the trail to the parking area where the boys threw their lines in again.  Brady ended up catching a small walleye which he was very proud of.

It was a good day :)

On Sunday morning, I went back to work and Don took the boys fishing at another local lake.  They were loving Dad being on vacation!

I worked again yesterday, and today I’m trying to catch up on weekend laundry and I need to make it out to the garden.  The weeds have taken over and vacation is over, so I guess I need to get out there and rescue my veggies!

I’ve been working on a Stacy Nash cross stitch project since before we left for vacation and I’m finally almost done with it.  I’ve started working on Halloween and fall pieces and should have a few up for sale after the beginning of July.  Can’t start too early, can we?  It’s my favorite season, so I was excited to get started working on a few patterns that I have had for awhile.  I really want to work on rearranging some things in the house, but I have got to find time to do it all!  lol

Before I go, I wanted to show you how big Timmy has gotten!  It seems he was still a baby when we left and we returned home to an almost full grown duck!  I know, it was only 5 days, but he seems so different now….and he found his big boy ‘quack’ while we were gone!

The pond had gotten quite ‘scummy’ while we were gone.  We could tell it had gotten pretty hot here, because the pond gets bad like this when it’s hotter.   Hubs and the boys went in to clear it up some.

 

Timmy happily swims all over now, where he was sticking to the edges before.  They didn’t get all of it out, but today it is cooler outside and the pond is clear as can be.  We’ve treated it in the past, but it killed some of the fish we have in there, and with Timmy being in there now, we aren’t sure we want to risk making him sick.  We will have to live with the ‘hot day scum’ I guess.  I just love looking out the window and seeing him floating along :)

Probably kind of a boring post again, but hopefully I will have some more interesting pics to show soon :)