Wrapping up The Summer of Kara- August 17, 2013

Well, I mentioned in one of my previous 2013 posts that this summer would be focused on my daughter Kara.  After starring in her high school musical, prom, graduation, and the college send-off (which we organized), we arrived at the grand finale: Kara's departure to college.  On 8/15 we left with a fully loaded mini-van for Morgantown, WV- home of West Virginia University.  Yes, Kara would be following her older brother and attending our alma mater. The morning of the 16th, we moved Kara in to Towers, same dorm I lived in 32 years ago.  Funny, it even smelled the same.  After Kara tweeted the Mountaineer mascot to come help, we were stunned when he actually showed up in full Mountaineer garb, including musket.  I managed to conclude the day without becoming emotional.  I think I'm saving up for a secret daddy cry-fest,....

Saturday August 17 I headed to Deal Island, as I had agreed to take my brother Ross and one of his young boys, 8 year old Owen, fishing.  After mowing grass and working on my boat trailer for a few hours, my brother showed up at about 4 pm, a bit late due to his 5 hour drive to the beach.  Our target was a 5:05pm low tide.  While we managed to dodge the previously forcasted rain, we couldn't avoid a pretty active NE wind.  Had we been without the young boy, we would have gone out into Tangier Sound.  Instead we played it safe and fished Laws Thorofare, a.k.a.- the gut.  Only able to catch the final 45 minutes of outgoing tide, we still managed to put 9 pretty decent fish into the cooler.  And, young Owen did a pretty good job- reminding me totally of his father when he was that age.  I'm glad we got to go.  Hadn't fished with my brother in years- we used to fish together all the time.  He had never been on my boat.  And I had also never fished with his son (Ross's older son Adam is not yet too fond of boats).

Well, the summer is truly winding down.  Labor Day is in two weeks, then all of September is wrapped up in a mission trip, a business trip, and two football games.  I hope to have the jon boat trailer rebuild completed just in time for crabbing.