Sunday, May 23rd, 2021

 Today we drove home from Yellow River, where Elizabeth, the boys, and myself had a fun family weekend camping, fishing, and exploring Harpers Ferry.  

Elizabeth and the boys sitting around the campfire at Little Paint Campground.

This was the rainbow trout that Nolan reeled in all by himself.  

Elizabeth and the boys at the Harper's Ferry boat sign.

The weekend was a lot of fun, and it included a couple of odd events.  First, during our drive up there, we saw a really fancy car... a Lotus.  It was a yellow sports car, and according to our quick google search they start around $96,000.  The guy driving had his top down, and the funny thing about it was that while we were driving with it a heavy rain started to come down, and this poor guy was getting soaked in his fancy car.

The other odd thing that happened was on Saturday night after Elizabeth put the kids to bed.  We were looking up at the stars, and when we saw this strange line of lights moving across the sky.  I thought maybe they were a bunch of military planes flying, but it was strange that they were all in a perfect line.  The strange thing was how many there were... probably 60 or more.  We were concerned enough that we walked over to a neighbor's campsite and asked them what they thought.  It turns out that they knew about them... it is a group of satelites owned by Elon Musk called Starlink.  So we were relieved that we were not under attack by aliens or something!

As for our camping trip, we stayed at campsite #123.  Friday night we built camp, had a fire, and roasted hot dogs & marshmallows.  I brought some Nutella along instead of Hershey's chocolate bars for the smoores, and that was a hit.  I did try a little fishing at the hole close to camp, but no luck.

Saturday morning I got up early (around 6:15) and went fishing by myself while Elizabeth and the boy slept in.  I headed down the trail at Little Paint, and I took a left at the first fork and tried my luck down by the rock wall.  I had a couple of nibbles but nothing to show for it, so then I headed a little further down the trail (straight at the first fork, and then immediately to the left).  I had a couple of nibbles on my first two casts, had about 10 minutes of nothing, and then caught 2 nice rainbow trout on back to back casts.  I headed home after about 1 hour and 20 minutes total of fishing, and I had a nice trout breakfast.  

Saturday afternoon, after Elizabeth had taken the boys into Harpers Ferry to explore a little, I took everyone on what turned out to be a quick fishing trip.  We walked to the same spot that I had caught the two trout that morning.  I rigged up Nolan's fishing pole, casted it out, and handed him the pole.  Before I could even get a work on Maxwell's pole, Nolan says "I think I've got a nibble".  I turn around and saw that his bobber was a couple of feet underwater.  Lol.  So I told him to reel it in!  He reeled in a really nice rainbow trout, and I helped net it for him.  His was probably a couple of inches bigger than the ones I had caught earlier that day.  After that both boys just wanted to play with the trout, and we were basically done fishing.  That turned out to be all of the fishing Nolan even tried for the trip, so he caught one fish on a single cast, in probably 30 seconds of total time.  Pretty efficient!

I did try my luck again Saturday night at my three usual spots (by the campsite, first left by the rock wall, straight at the fork then immediately left).  Alas, I had no luck after about an hour of trying.  In total I probably spent two and a half hours fishing to get two trout, while Nolan caught one in less than a minute!  

This was Nolan's second time at Yellow River, and it was Maxwell's first trip.  I'm not sure how many times I have been there, but here are some previous trips: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2014, 2013, and 2012.  This was the first time I have been up there without one of the Seagos.  Matthew and his wife are expecting twins this month, so that is why they did not come up.