Day 22: Sun, 7/3: Vallecito Reservoir, CO

Day 22:  Sun, 7/3:  Vallecito Reservoir, CO – fishing, motor boat, kayaking, paddle boarding

We slept in until 8 am.  Then we ate breakfast and packed up our fishing gear and went fishing at Lemon Lake again.  What a difference a day makes! This time the weather was warmer, the sun was out, and the lake looked beautiful. Andrea caught about a 12 inch rainbow trout within 5 minutes of casting her fishing line and Sarah caught 3 more trout over the next 2 hours.  We enjoyed seeing osprey, heron, hawks and other birds flying around, as well as beautiful, large yellow and black butterflies under the blue skies.  Poor Ryan didn’t catch any fish.  He got his hook or weights caught on rocks almost every cast.  Sam spent the majority of the 2.5 hours supporting the other three’s endeavors by tying on new hooks and weights, untangling knots, baiting hooks, or helping mostly Sarah get fish off her line.  We got back to camp around 1 pm and continued fishing right behind our RV.  Ryan used the stand up paddleboard as Sam kayaked.  Then Sam used the stand up paddleboard as Andrea and Sarah read and did puzzles and Sudoku by the river.  A quick 20 minute rain storm came in the late afternoon.  Afterwards, we took out our the lake our inflatable 5 man boat with our electric motor.  We had fun going around the lake taking in new views and trading off being “captain.”   The kids love to steer the boat with the motor.  Once back, we cooked our trout outside overlooking the water.  There were 2 deer across the river that we watched for about 30 minutes while we relaxed at the river’s edge.  We really liked the dinner, especially since Andrea and Sarah caught it.  The girls kept joking that Ryan and I should thank them since they “fed the family today.”  We fished some more (caught nothing), walked to the lake and hung out with our awesome neighbors from New Mexico.  We had a campfire and roasted more Peeps in the campfire.  Before we knew it, Ryan ate 6 Peeps and Sarah hadn’t even started her first one yet!  We decided to cut him off and let the rest of us have one or two.  Surprisingly, he went to sleep shortly afterward.

Andrea catches about 12 inch fish 

What a difference a day makes--sunny, less wind and we caught 4 fish!

Sarah with the 3 trout she caught.  The girls fed the whole family today with their fishing prowess!!!

All of us enjoying a leisurely motorboat ride on our inflatable dinghy around beautiful Vallecito Reserervoir.  Our motor in the back is slow so the kids would paddle anyway.