Nearly the middle of July and you put on a new pair of underwear; what could be better than hanging out on the couch? Thats right!


Packing up can really wear on you so we crashed our good friends' (Kevin and Cheryl Gurney) family reunion at Twin Lakes, Colville Reservation, Washington. Beautiful weather and three bear sightings right in our camp! Luckily we washed all the s'more residue from Jett's face before he went to bed. We loved this place and we loved spending time with such good people.



We said "screw the TomTom," and took a detour that included a quiet ferry ride across Lake Roosevelt. This is the Keller Ferry just above THE DAM, and the sky was pure blue. Dropping into the gorge was a tricky ride for our Excursion, but the Mercedes 550 right behind us enjoyed the switchback slalom.



Just over 5 weeks, this was Irelyn's first campout, and she did great! Dad forgot the third schmear of sunscreen and she toasted up perty pink. Daily Irelyn enjoyed breastmilk, while we ate huge breakfast burritos, dutch-oven ribs "A-La-Kevin Gurney" and some great 7-layer dip...just to name a few entrees. Good eats foreverybody!


The beautiful largemouth was caught shortly after I let Brian Howald's big one out of the bucket while trying to fill it with water. I felt pretty bad, until I hooked this one with a small Rapala, medium retrieve and 5 foot depth. Kevin piloted the boat right into some great structure and every other cast produced a strike. Leia gave a good-bye smoochie to the fish and we sent her back to make more babies.

We were so grubby by the end of our trip, that we even considered taking a swim outside The Grand Coulee Dam... but after 30 minutes in the car, everyone was toast, so the driver insisted on listening to Weezer while I made more to-do lists to get ready for our big move...