Travel Log: 1998 Pine Lake, Part Two

Part One of this travel log can be read here.

July 21 – (Shelly writing) Lounged until 10:00 am, then kids and I went into town for a few supplies (we thought we should stock up on beer before RAGBRAI showed up) then back to the cabin. David made his famous scrambled eggs with all the leftovers (wonderful!) I did clean up then we all piled back into the car to go back to Eldora to do fun things. David went checking out a few stores while the kids and I went to BJ’s Video. We played pinball and pool. Their favorite game was Motorcycle Derby – they actually sat on a plastic motorcycle and leaned left and right to curve it and turned the throttle to speed up and pulled the brake to stop. We had agreed David would come back to us in 40 minutes. When he came back the kids and I went to Ahoy Fountain while David explored a few more stores. The Fountain was great, Jacob had his first real banana split (he ate the whole thing) Sarah had a single dip cone and I had an old fashion yummy root beer float. The whole town was gearing up for RAGBRAI – extra supplies and help. We came back to the cabin, Jacob roller bladed, Sarah explored, David and I read and relaxed. David took the kids down to the creek and I continued to relax and read. It was great weather today, cloudy and cool. We turned off the AC and opened the windows in the cabin. After the kids and David came back from the creek they showered and had supper. We all relaxed, read then played a game of Monopoly. We are looking forward to tomorrow – we go fishing!

July 22 – We all slept in (again!) then ate and to the beach. Too hot for me, so I came back to the cabin and relaxed for a while. I decided to try fishing the Iowa River (one snag, several bites, no fish) After two hours at the beach Shelly and the kids came back and wanted to fish too. We packed up and walked over to Lower Pine Lake. Sarah caught three fish, Jacob two and Shelly and I had no luck. After about an hour and running out of worms we decided to try the river. We restocked at the cabin and tried a new spot on the river, where the spillway stream from Lower Pine Lake meets the Iowa River. In the shallow of the stream just before it empties into the Iowa there was a lazy school of at least 300 fish. Everyone was very excited and began casting right into the fish – who, of course, were not interested at all. After about an hour of actually hitting the fish with our casting and them ignoring it we decided to head back to the cabin. The kids ate, then Shelly, then they were in bed reading for the night. Time for me to get some grub and join them.

Continued Next Month