Where's Your Happy Place?

I think everyone has what Barb and I refer to as our Happy Places. Places that bring a glow to our hearts when we are there. For Barb and I we share a few together and have a few to ourselves. For me, it is the forests of northern Wisconsin on my friend Mike’s property and a duck blind on a pothole in North Dakota. For Barb, it would be the Oregon Coast where she spent so much time with her mom, dad and brother growing up. Our shared happy places are our place in South Dakota, anywhere where we are with our kids and here at Pasha Lake Cabins. These are places all of life’s worries shed off your shoulders and you can just relax. Places you would want your ashes spread when you die and just become part of that special place.

But it is more than just the places, it is the people there that also make it special. At Pasha Lake, that is Chad and Michelle. We have been coming up here since they purchased the resort in 2006. Well, we did miss two years, 2016 when we went to Alaska and of course last year. So this year when Barb and I turned onto Highway 17 in Nipigon, we were just giddy with excitement, it had been way too long!

But when we arrived, neither Chad nor Michelle were there. Chad arrived 2 days later. He had not been here in almost a year! Imagine owning a business that you rely on for a living and not even being able to visit it? Michelle will not be coming up at all as she is working and has kids in school. She will be dearly missed.

One of the bonuses (for us) of coming up this year is that Chad did not have a full camp and offered us a cabin during our stay up here. We jumped at it! More room for the dogs. More room for cooking, dishing and just relaxing

View out our window

The other bonus is that he has extra bear tags and asked if Barb wanted one to hunt bear for the very first time!

So, have several goals over the next few weeks, relax, fish and see about getting Barbie a bear. We went out bear hunting the first night, which is deal for Barb. You see, she is terrified of bears and I am talking one of those irrational “bears are going to kill me fears”. Ever since she was a small child she has had reoccurring dreams about bears attacking her, basically ripping her face off. So what better way to face this fear then to go into the woods in a 4x4 soft sided ground blind, known in the bear world as a Barbie Burrito!

So far we have been out 4 times, 5 hours each, sitting in a 4x4 space, not talking…. just reading, playing games on our iPads and just watching the world go by. The first night we were sitting there and the woods were dead quite, not a sound at all. All of a sudden the woods exploded and Barb’s eyes about popped out of her head. She thought for sure a bear was charging through the woods directly at us with a jar of salsa. Then a little red squirrel bounded by as though he was late for a meeting. I told her “Relax honey, bears don’t make any noise in the woods, it is the noise you don’t hear that you have to worry about”. I am sure she felt better after that!

We had no bear sightings that night but it was good to get out in the woods.

The next day it was time to go fishing! We went to one of our favorite fishing lakes. After launching the boat we were off to what we call “secret spot”. I really don’t know how secret it is but we don’t tell anyone about it. 

We were not there 5 minutes when Barb shouts “Fish on!”. And so it begins, with Barb not only catching the first fish but as always, she caught the biggest of the day as well.

We were there probably 2 hours and caught 20+ fish each with 8 nice walleyes for the stringer. Fish dinner tonight!

Since then we/I have been out fishing several more times. A former co-worker of both Chad and mine came up for the week with his fiancée Diane and son Dylan. Chad and I joined them on the lake for a day of fishing. As we were going out I took a picture of Chad but he stopped me and insisted that I take a picture of “his good side” while he pose stoically motoring down the lake….

Does he even have a good side?

I am not sure but maybe I was supposed to take a picture of the other side?

Once we arrived to our destination Chad and I dropped our lines in the water and it was game on!

After about 30 minutes we had enough fish for shore lunch so we motored over to Rob and Diane who were having just as good of luck as we were. Rob was a busy man taking, not only catching his own fish but taking the ones off the hooks that Diane and Dylan caught as well.

All 5 of us then headed over to a nearby island for shore lunch. Nothing like fresh walleye straight from the lake!

Bear hunting the following night was just a quite sit in the woods with nothing too exciting to see but some squirrels and chipmunks and Barb was becoming a lot more comfortable sitting in the woods. On our most recent hunt we went out a little earlier so we got to spend even more time silently staring at each other! About 45 minutes into that hunt I look to my right and see a bear! He is silently approaching our area so Barb gets her bow ready to shoot.  It is amazing that animal that size can walk soundlessly through the woods. As it slowly approached, we were both judging him to see if he was a bear that Barb wanted or not. Barb was surprisingly calm as he nosed around just a mere 45 feet away.

He nosed around the area for about 15 minutes before walking off to parts unknown. Afterwards Barb said her heart was pounding so hard she thought for sure the bear was going to hear it!

Meanwhile, back in Pringle South Dakota, Kevin, Cheryl, Dan and Bonnie are continuing to have fun without us. I know, it has to be hard for them but they are managing. When Kevin’s mom was here a few weeks ago, Barb and I had just returned to the area as well. We were at the bar on Wednesday night when someone said it was good to have “the six pack” back together. Well, Kevin’s mom ran with that whole “six pack” theme and took it a step further and ordered us t-shirts caricatures of each of us on it and the title of “The Pringle 6 Pack” under them. Well, they wanted a picture of all of us wearing them but we were not there….what to do? Ever resilient, they broke out Jim and Barb on a Stick, dressed us up and took us out for a night at the bar!

They said we had a great time and were getting lots of strange stares from the other bar patrons.

But wait, there’s more! Cheryl was not done with me as when Kevin went to bed later that night, he found that I was already in his spot in bed! 

Sometimes I swear they have more fun when we are gone than when we are there!  

We still have a couple weeks left up here to fish and find a cooperative bear, who knows what adventures await us!