DEADLINE = JUNE 23, 2012

TO DO: 0 COMPLETED: 50!

"it's interesting to be in your mid-twenties... up until this point in my life, i have been working hard for something, wishing something, expecting something. whether it's learning to drive, going to prom, my first kiss, graduating high school, going to college, graduating college, getting a job. i feel like everything in my life has happened so fast and suddenly... i'm here. i have a degree, i have a good job, i have a nice apartment, i have a boyfriend, i have a dog. of course, i have plenty of things to look forward to... but for me, probably nothing major anytime soon. this last year, i kind of felt like i "arrived." and after 24 years of moving forward, it's weird to just be... here. i'm kind of at a place where i'm saying "now what?"

i just turned 25 a couple weeks ago, and i decided life can be as interesting as i make it-- to seize the day-- even without any major life changes. so i made a bucket list for this year. there's a couple big things, but really most of them are feasible "firsts" or attempts to make changes to my day-to-day life or things to look forward to. here. now."

Sunday, September 25, 2011

#42 Ride in a Boat

This was kind of a dumb thing to put on my bucket list. I live in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, so going out on a boat is not the most unusual thing for someone to do. In fact, most people are on a boat several times during the summer. And, for me, this summer did involve several boat rides.

The reason I put it on my list to begin with was that, since I had been in college, I really hadn't had many opportunities. I didn't live at home, and the people that I spent the majority of my time with were about my age, in similar living circumstances, and without boats. I used to spend a great deal of time with the Knapps (a family who, as a whole, I have been good friends with since 9th grade) on their lake, but the trend had shifted from tubing every day to competitive water skiing and wake boarding, which I wasn't as interested in participating in.


This summer, though, was different than it had been since I left home for college. I took Brian to my grandparent's lake house at the beginning of the summer, where he re-realized his love for fishing (particularly because we had a really good day and caught about 4 bass and 2 northern.) The rest of the summer, we tried to replicate this experience by taking my parents' canoe out onto several lakes within the area... and having absolutely no luck every time. Literally, we caught nothing.


We also visited his uncle in Wisconsin, where we went fishing in the Mississippi river and frogging in a nearby pond (which involved catching bullfrogs at midnight in a blow up raft, which eventually deflated and sank in to pond scum. But it was still awesome.)


A week or so ago, we decided to try wake boarding with Justin and Amy-- Brian and I both got up our first tries! Because it was so much fun the first time, we joined them a second time with Alyssa and Nate.

Our last "boating" experience (and probably the last this year) was on Brian's birthday. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I fail at everything. It really was my fault this time, too. I had arranged with Justin a few weeks ahead of time to take his pontoon boat out on to his lake (which has several large fish in it), early in the morning on Brian's birthday. We didn't have many opportunities to go out in anything other than a canoe, so I knew Brian would be excited about it. A week or so before his birthday, he brought up that he would like to go fishing on his birthday. If I was clever, I could have said "Oh, well I have other plans for us that morning" and then surprised him. Or maybe I could have said "Yeah, sure we can go fishing" and surprised him with the boat. But I got really flustered and frustrated and said "You ruined it! I was going to surprise you and take you out on Justin's boat." And, of course, he responded with, "Why did you tell me that? You didn't need to tell me that. I would have had no idea." I'm smooth like that.

Well, we woke up at about 6 am (which was painful, since he had been the closing band at a show the night before) and drove all the way to Rockford to fish in the pontoon boat. I was able to treat him to breakfast and coffee at McDonald's on the way, so I surprised him with SOMETHING at least. :) Justin and Amy woke up early to show us how to use the boat and send us off.

It was beautiful. The temperature was bearable-- about 50 degrees, so a sweatshirt and coat was sufficient-- the sun had just come up and there was a light fog over the water. There were a couple fishing boats on the water, but otherwise, we had the lake to ourselves and the water was incredibly calm.


We trolled for a little bit and cast out by a weeded shallow area for about 45 minutes. And... then the boat ran out of gas and we were stranded. We called Justin and Amy (probably waking them up for a second time) and asked them to save us. So they rode out on their speed boat and brought us a little gas. They had just filled the tank that morning, but we discovered there was a leak and we spilled an entire 6 gallons of gas into the lake. Six gallons. We considered taking the speed boat out, but Brian thought it would scare the fish away. We also considered casting off the dock until we realized that a few of the gallons had spilled by the dock and the water looked like this:


Even though we didn't catch anything and had our outing cut short, it was still a lot of fun... I think. I'm sure next summer will involve several more boating trips and hopefully a lot more fish... and this will never need to be put on a bucket list again.
Posted by at

1 comment:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)