A Weekend Away At The LCI

We ran away.  Just for the weekend, but still we ran away, and we just returned home.  We packed up the good ol’ truck and trekked the 6.5 hrs from our neck of the woods in Maine to Button Bay on Lake Champlain for the annual Lake Champlain International fishing derby.  Colby’s family has participated in the derby since it’s inception, 31 years ago.  It’s a family tradition that he’s been partaking in off and on since he was a kid and this year was my first year attending.  And all I have to say, is Lake Champlain is beautiful!

These pics were taken from Button Bay on the Vermont side of the lake.  It’s about an hour South of Burlington.

More specifically, these photos were taken on the point, which is about a half mile walk along the bay down from our campsite.  It was worth the walk!

We met up with a couple of Colby’s cousins and their kids, and also some friends, and we all bunkered down in our tents at the Button Bay State Park campsite for the weekend.  Now, I should divulge, Colby and his cousin Eric are a little hardcore when it comes to fishing.  They take it VERY seriously.  The up at dawn kind of serious.  Definitely not my jam.  So while the boys fished their little hearts away, I spent a significant amount of time here:

Oh yes…have hammock…will travel.  I poured through one book before I started conking out and napping in the hammock instead.  So while the boys were fishing and Angie was in the hammock, the moms had their hands full with the kids.  Which included kids in trees:

Of course there were smores:

And brown bears:

Can we just talk about the ooey gooeyness that is brown bears?  I had never heard of them before this weekend and I’m SOOOOOO excited to learn about this food.  They’re made kind of like smores in that you roast ’em over the fire.  And because I think the whole world needs to be made aware of brown bears, I’m sharing the secret.  Here’s how they’re made:  you take a stick, wrap an uncooked crescent roll strip around said stick, cook the dough, slather it in butter, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, and enjoy.

It’s like fried dough for camping!  Delicious!  There was also a lot of hanging around the big boat at the campsite:

And pig piling on the canoes:

But mostly there was fishing.

I got to go out on the bass boat one late afternoon and had a blast!  The kids kept trying to reel in the big one while the adults spent alot of time untangling lines or replacing lost wacky worms (new fishing lure term I learned).

Even the kiddos took the fishing tourney seriously.

The prizes for getting the big fish are HUGE!  There are many different categories and prizes but I’ve learned that you can win big cash…like $150,000 big.  But needless to say, we didn’t come home with the big prize.

I was amazed at the gorgeousness of the lake as the sun started to set.

And those two black blobs in the water…those are a pair of cliffs hanging out of the water in the middle of the lake.  I thought they may have been Champ, Lake Champlain’s version of the Loch Ness Monster, but I was clearly mistaken.  But as the sun set on the last evening of fishing, the boys made their final casts and we headed home.

But not before Colby caught a big fish:

So after four days of traveling, hanging out at camp, hammocking, and fishing, we’ve returned to Maine refreshed, relaxed, and ready to attack many of those projects we left behind us.

Pssst…Sadly, I don’t have a single picture of me from the whole weekend!  Boo!  I have got to start giving my camera to others to use so I can get in on the photos too!

Psssssst…So I’m back on the DIY train this week.  Be sure to check back for some serious project bidness going on this week!