We Passed Through Colon and All You Got Was This Lousy Blog Post

July 12, 2017

We Passed Through Colon and All You Got Was This Lousy Blog Post

Monday morning, we packed up the kids and headed out on a mid-summer mini vacation.

Gretchen found us this two-bedroom lodge on Palmer Lake in Colon that we could stay at for a couple of days and do some fishing.

Even though we had a kitchen, we had to make a pit stop on the way there.

After we "checked in," we found a nearby park where Gracie could kill some time on the swing. It was the only thing she did while we were there, of course.

Augie played on the slide structure ... until he got stung by that wasp. Then he cried. So we decided to go back to the lodge for a nap, which made Gracie cry. She really loves her swinging.

For dinner, I tried one of those bags of charcoal you light on fire. It worked well, and saved me from having to buy lighter fluid. Unfortunately, I got the hot dogs a little too close to the hottest coals and they turned out more done than I intended.

So I drowned my sorrows in my new Frozen fishing pole. It's pretty sweet, right?

We got a good night's sleep and headed out to the lake Tuesday morning at 0800. We walked out to our pier, but were scared off by a neighborhood bully.

Lucky for us the lodges had multiple piers to fish from. I attempted to fish along with Gracie and Augie. We got off to a slow start, though, because, when I threw Augie's line in the water, his bobber went under immediately. I didn't have time to set the drag on his new pole, or even hand it to him. So I got to reel in the first fish.

There were a couple of brief moments when all three of us had our lines in the water.

Gracie caught her first fish, a bluegill, with a little help from dad. She made sure not to get too close to it, though. She didn't want it touching her or anything.

We caught a few fish before another neighborhood bully started stalking our bobbers.

He finally caught up to mine while I was casting someone's pole, so we set him free and called it a morning.

Before nap, we made a quick trip to Coldwater, which of course made Gracie say she didn't want to go to Coldwater, she wanted to go to Hotwater. We found the Children's Museum of Branch County, and Augie dug for some dinosaurs.

Gracie, too.

She also painted.

And colored.

And dropped balls down this clinkedy-clunkedy thing.

Augie also learned how a siphon pump works at the water table ...

... he scaled walls ...

... he checked out the inner workings of a really awesome mix tape ...

... and checked X-rays at the vet's office.

Before leaving Hotwater, we ate at Jeannie's Diner. The waitress took our order, but Gracie wrote it down, too, just in case. If you ever happen upon Hotwater, you should stop at Jeannie's Diner. The food was great.