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Melissa & Dave - Adventures at Sea

Upper Manitou

We awoke to weather that looked like this:

So we hopped on the pontoon boat and headed for the upper Manitou – a 60 mile trip.

Uncle Bob was showing us his lake, and there were lots of things to see.  First were the Indian Petroglyphs.  No idea how old they are – but the suspicion is that they aren’t very old.

Next stop Watson falls.

When we came around the corner headed for the Watson Cabin, Melissa started screaming, “Moose!  Moose!  Moose!”, so Dave cut the engine.  After all the trips in the boat over the years “moose hunting” up every little inlet, it was great for Melissa and Dave to finally get to see one in the wild.  This was a female, so no big rack, but cool none the less.  The picture is blurry because we were so far away – this is a blow up to about 10x.

Bill Watson was famous in this area for being something of a crook.  At one point he went and convinced a school teacher in a nearby town to marry him.  He told her where he lived there was gold everywhere and if she married him she would live a comfortable life.  Eventually she agreed to the marriage, and he brought her back to his trapper’s shack:

She grew to love the pioneering life and outlived him on the island.

After that it was time for a weenie roast on an small island.

Melissa was having fun with the camera.

After lunch, it was time to see about catching some lake trout.  Uncle Bob rigged up the downrigger.  Melissa asked why the weight had Mardi Gras beads attached to its tail (see picture), he said that they had found that that downriggers with beads catch fish more often than ones without.

 

After setting up the downrigger, instructing Dave where to drive the boat to catch the elusive lake trout, Marla and Dad “caught” fish.  Meaning they reeled in the line after the fish was already hooked.  Not clear on why this qualifies as “catching a fish”, but you can see from the smiles everyone was having a ton of fun.  Uncle Bob showed Marla how to hold the fish in front of her to make it look extra big.

Melissa shot some video that gives a pretty good idea of what it was like to go through the narrow passages as we made our way back down river.

And as this picture shows, behind every great man is a great woman.  We love Joyce.  She is the perfect pioneer woman mate for Uncle Bob.

Sunset was gorgeous.

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