Canadian Vacation - Rough Rock Lodge

Some people take annual vacations to Disneyland, or head north to their "cabins." Others go into cities or spend time at the ocean.

Growing up, we took two major vacations a year, plus a couple sporadic camping trips. My mom would take my sister and I to Florida to visit my grandparents every year for spring break. And come summer, my mom, dad, sister and I would head up on our annual weeklong fishing trip to Canada.

We did this for over 15 years.

The routine was always the same. I would make my packing list a month or two before, and I'd start packing. We usually went the weekend after school got out for the summer, and the night before we would leave, I would be so excited I couldn't sleep. We would wake up super early, and hit the road.

My sister and I would be sleeping again 10 minutes down the road.

Those family vacations were full of adventure, fun, trophy fish, tasty shore lunches, and sometimes disaster. Above all, they were full of amazing memories.

I went to Canada with my parents and sister in the summer of 2008. Then, in 2009 I was in Hawaii, 2010 was my sister's wedding, and in 2011, I had such a full wedding season that I didn't have time to go to Canada.

But this year, we made it. We made plans, carved out a week in our schedules, and the 6 of us [my parents, my sister and her husband, Matt and I] went up to Canada to fish for a week.

Tony had gone up to Canada in 2009 with Erica and my parents, but this was Matt's first time coming up there. This was only the second vacation we'd ever taken with just the 6 of us too. Last year, we went on a weekend camping trip to Jay Cooke.

We spent the week at Rough Rock Lodge in Ontario; a place that my parents and grandpa have spent several trips in the past couple summers at. We fished, ate shore lunch, read books [my sister and I read books anyway], took in the pristine Canadian scenery, played Joker, and enjoyed each other's company.

It was awesome.

It wasn't my most successful trip in terms of numbers or size of fish caught, but it was memorable because it was all 6 of us together.
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I think Dad is showing the guys the map of the lake here?

Our home sweet home for the week! The next morning, the lake was covered in fog. I snapped this photo, and then I went back to bed. Sunrise on vacation is earlyyyy! The first full day of fishing was warm, like almost 80. We had an awesome shore lunch, in shorts! When the sun rose the next day, the temp was much cooler.  This is the resort cat, "Chuck."  I kept thinking, that's such a funny name for a cat!  Then, when we were back home, I was talking about Chuck with Matt, and he said the cat's name was really Charlie. Somehow Matt and Tony, or maybe it was my dad, started calling him Chuck.  I thought his name really was Chuck. Matt tried to feed a frog to Chuck, but he wasn't interested. My only fish picture all week. Glad I got one fish big enough to warrant a photo though! The biggest northern Matt's ever caught! And he's wearing his lucky fishing hat. I woke up at 5am one morning to go out fishing with my dad and Tony. Everyone else slept in.  I am SO HAPPY I woke up early because this is what my dad brought into the boat that morning. He actually had a sauger on his line, and this big muskie came and bit the sauger. It hung on all the way to the boat and he netted both of them.
Unreal. By the last night of fishing, Matt wanted to read instead of fish.   We left the resort early on Sunday to start the drive back to Minnesota. It was so foggy, we couldn't see the shoreline. Even though my parents know the lake like the back of their hand, it was disorienting to be in the middle of the lake in the fog. Matt skipping rocks while he waits. I love Canada. The lakes are different than they are in Minnesota. Seeing untouched shoreline without a million houses along the edge is something that's hard to describe. It was an amazing week spent with the people who are dearest to me.
We'll be back!