Adventures in Minnesota (Part 1)

Every year or so my family goes up to Minnesota to visit my grandparents who live there. They don't live in St. Paul or Minneapolis or anywhere else remotely inhabited by people, they live in is little town in the middle of nowhere. The actual town is about ten minutes away by car and their house sits in the middle of a cleared patch surrounded by trees and various birds and squirrels and deer.

Somehow my grandparents are able to fit themselves and my family of eight in their dinky one-floor, three bedroom house. I usually have dibs on sleeping in the walk-in closet in the "kids' bedroom" because 1) I get my own room, 2) When I close the door it gets dark before 11pm, 3) It's the quietest place in the entire house.

Now, everyone knows that Minnesota is the Land O' Billion Lakes, which is why my grandparents moved there in the first place since my Opa wanted to fish. A lot of fishing is done while we're there and an open invitation goes out to whoever wants to go with. My dad always goes and sometimes my mom joins. The first time around everyone is excited and all ready to jump in to boat with our poles and bait and catch dinner, but after a few more days the high fades and no one really cares anymore. It goes a bit like this:

Opa: "Who want's go go fishing?"
All the kids: "I do! I do! Yay, fishing!!!"
Dad: "Okay, but we're going to get up early!"

Now, when people say "early" I think of 7am, but no. "Fishing early" is about 5:30am so you're at the lake by 6am.

After someone comes and wakes you up at the butt-crack of dawn you roll out of your bed (or closet), pull on your warmest clothing, maybe eat some breakfast, and if there's time you might be able to yank a hairbrush through your hair. You climb in a car and head to the lake.

At this point, I'm usually still tired but excited about taking the boat out. After we manage to get the boat out in the middle of the water and cast our lines we sit around for about half an hour before the kids start to get bored and we realize that sitting around for hours watching your bobber do nothing really isn't that exciting.

Two hours and (maybe) three fish later, the kids have complained and whined enough for my dad to call someone to pick us up and take us back to the house. Opa and dad drop us off at the dock with my grandma or mom and then return to fishing for their bonding time. The rest of us return home and play with dominoes or watch TV.

By the end of the week, no one wants to fish anymore.