July 27, 2011 -- On/In Leech Lake

Well, I'm back at Leech Lake. I went to St. Cloud on Sunday in advance of picking up my son Joe from the airport on Monday. Actually, Joe flew into Minneapolis then took a shuttle bus up to St. Cloud where I met him at the Holiday Inn.

Joe had taken the redeye flight from San Francisco was understandably tired upon his arrival. He was also hungry, so we had breakfast at Perkin's. We spent Monday at Marge Coyle's house (Kathleen's mom) visiting with her as well as Kathleen's brother's family. We took care of various chores for people (such as hauling some old junk to the dump), but mainly we just hung out and talked with family.

On Tuesday, July 26, Joe and I packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes, and headed up to Leech Lake. We arrived sometime around 7:00 p.m. and spent the rest of the evening quietly, having dinner and just hanging out.

This morning we awoke to gray, overcast skies, a temperature of 70 degrees and light winds out of the SW at 7-10 mph. It rained last night so the ground, and everything else, was wet. The humidity is not nearly as bad as it was last week, but it's at 82%, so it was a little sticky. The temperature is supposed to reach 80 today, and with that humidity, it might get a bit uncomfortable.

After breakfast and a little work around the house, Joe and I went fishing. It was the first chance I had to use the new Drift Control drift sock, which I had bought at Scheel's in St. Cloud. I took the boat past Second Duck Point in 11 feet of water, which was at 77 degrees, and deployed the new drift sock; which worked wonderfully.

Both Joe and I used jigs tipped with leeches, but after two passes the only fish boated were a couple of small perch that I caught. We then realized that we had forgotten to get Joe a Minnesota fishing license, so we immediately came in off the water, drove to Birch Ridge Resort and got him an annual fishing license.

We came back to the house, had some lunch, and then set in on some yard work that included planting some lilies of the valley that we had brought back from Marge Coyle's house. I asked her if we could transplant some of her plants and she was more than happy to have them live on in another location.

By the time we were done working around the yard, both Joe and I were hot and dripping with sweat. The temperature had climbed to 82 degrees and the humidity was up over 90%. It was time to "cool the core," so both of us jumped in the lake. We swam around for 10 minutes or so and then got out. For the rest of the evening we remained fairly cool as a result of our plunge into Leech Lake.

Joe and I had a tasty dinner of pulled BBQ pork, Cole slaw and fries. We ended the night by watching a movie, a favorite of ours, a Coen brothers movie, The Big Lebowski.

Good night from Leech Lake.