WESTBROOK, Minnesota (STPNS) -- Fall, my favorite time of the year! Days are warm nights are cool. It also is the time of year I love to vacation. This year, with our family growing with in-laws and grandkids, we had to reserve two cabins for our annual long Labor Day weekend near Cross Lake. I think this year’s trip was one of the best ever, except our daughter-in-law was unable to come along as she was recovering from a recent knee surgery. However Jason, Jeff and his fiance, Erin, and her two boys were able to come, and our oldest great grandson. Evan. came along with son, Joe.



    The weather was almost perfect, the fishing was good, and the laid back life up there was wonderful for body and soul. The  only minor glitch was when I talked Best Friend into going out in the boat to try her hand at fishing. It was the first time in many years that she has done that. I don’t know what bothers her more, fishing, or being on the water. At any rate I managed to catch a couple nice Bluegills, but it was a little windy so BF had some trouble with hooking into the weeds. But then I  did too,  so we both managed to slow things down. Then a squall came up and it started to rain, so at her urging we headed back to the cabin. Of course after we got back and unloaded our stuff, it quit raining.

    One thing that was really great was cooking Smores at our nightly campfires. There is hardly anything more enjoyable than watching the embers of a campfire on a cool fall evening, while roasting  marshmallows for Smores. Of course now I usually only eat one, years ago I would have eaten four or five! I guess that’s why they call them Smores.

    One thing I missed this year was the loons, for the past 20 years or more we have always enjoyed at least one pair of loons, and in the spring they also reared their young ones. I don’t know what happened, if they lost their mates or what, but I really miss their haunting call especially in the late evening.

    The hardest part of going up there is having to leave on Monday. But in two weeks we will be going up to son Jason’s place, near Detroit Lakes, for our annual get together with our family and Best Friend’s brother’s family for a long fishing weekend. So I am looking forward to that. Also I think with the way things are going the fall foliage should be in pretty good color. Regardless of the weather we always have a really fun weekend.

    

Have a great week and do good!