The Column: a king's vacation

When asked what my ideal vacation would be, I said "camping with my family somewhere with a lake for swimming and a good place for fishing." I LOVE camping. Especially with my family. It's fun, it's relaxing, time goes by slow, the food is AWESOME ... what more could I ask for? Here are some pictures of a trip we took in August. We camped for a few nights at Suttle Lake, which is in the Cascade Mts. in Central Oregon (for my non-Oregonian friends). Yes, that means the water is cold, even frigid, but that doesn't stop us from getting in! Just ask Jordan, he took an unexpected dip when my brother jumped out of their canoe trying to dump my sister and I into the water. I'd pay big bucks to have a picture of Jordan's face as the canoe rocked a couple times before capsizing. It was like "oh no, this isn't good" ... SPLASH! Grabbing for glasses and the canoe and struggling to get up to the shore.

Another highlight was taking my nephews fishing. Unfortunately, those pictures were taken on another camera. Of course, we thought they'd be bored within 5 minutes, so we headed down before breakfast for a few casts. The younger one gave up just as we expected. The older one loved it though. I kept hinting that we could go eat breakfast any time he wanted.
Me: "are you hungry?"
Cole: "yea"
Me: "okay, let's go eat breakfast"
Cole: "well, actually, I can wait"
Me: "come on kid, I'M starving!"

One afternoon we explored some of the forest service roads in the area to find a couple of smaller lakes for fishing. Jordan, Tyler (my bro) and I made our way around the lake, climbed out on these semi-rotten logs, I fell - almost in the water, and after about 15 minutes, everyone decided we should relocate. So, back up the slippery logs, through the woods and to the truck we went. At least we got some good pictures -- it was a beautiful view!