Fishing Family

It is Memorial Day weekend here on this side of the pond, a three day weekend. There will be observances on monday commemorating the lives lost in war, but mostly there will be barbecues, picnics, motorcycle gatherings called 'rolling thunder', parades and neighborhood gatherings. 

At 8am at Spring Lake fails were already gathering, staking out picnic tables near the swimming lagoon which officially opens today. There is a new attraction…a floating trampoline, various slides, and what looks like an obstacle course all made of blow up plastic and called a 'Waterpark'. Admission will be charged and kids musts be six and older to enter. It will be interesting to see how popular it is and how it manages to coexist with people swimming laps and the decidedly murky color of the water. The smell of chlorine drifted toward us as we got out of the car, as if to convince the dubious that the water was safe for swimming.

My camera battery died after only a few pictures, but I liked this little family unit…dad, two sons, and a little girl who seemed very interested in the whole thing. Dad was catching bugs in a bucket which I presume he was planning to use for bait. Apparently he also caught a frog which was the subject of great interest until it escaped.

I'm always happy to see parents so engaged with their kids. Not only did this father bring three young kids to the lake to fish, he seemed to have  their interest as he explained various things to them about their surroundings. The only 'devices' in sight were the two fishing poles….

As we were getting into the car, a peloton of bikers in matching lycra whizzed by, followed by a man with special skates and two cross country ski poles presumably keeping in shape until the winter snows come again.