Frump Style Vacation (Part Deux)

A couple of days into our stay in Washington, we again met up with my dad...this time for a fishing trip.

Our destination was this great fishing spot out on Fox Island, WA where you used to be able to catch dogfish.

Dogfish are small sharks, and it's been a longtime dream of Jericho's to catch one of these.

Bragging rights like those don't happen every day, after all.

We got there and set up 'camp' on the end of the pier.

Here my dad poses with Jericho in what has come to be known in our family as the 'Hawaiians' pose.



My dad's favorite Gospel singing duo of the 1970's were known as The Hawaiians.

In fact, they used to visit our church when I was a very young child. We also had all of their LP's.

Very often while singing, Mr. Hawaiian would rest his hand on his wife's shoulder in this exact same way...which my dad would repeat in numerous family pictures for years to come (though it was usually reserved for photos taken while singing Christmas Carols around the old family piano).

Or, maybe he was trying to hold Jericho down in the chair, I'm not entirely sure.

That beef jerky was a hot commodity.

Here is part of our little rag-tag band of fishermen.





My dad still has the same aluminum tackle box I remember him taking along on countless fishing trips when I was a kid.



I think Judah remembered it and it's many curious treasures from the last time he went fishing with grandpa.

Of course it could have been that he was enthralled by the bullhead that was breathing it's last beneath the bench, too.



A neighboring fisherman gave it to us to use for bait.

Yes, I'm ashamed to say that after sojourning in the desert for all these years, for our Western Washington fishing trip we'd forgotten to pack something as basic as bait, and frankly the beef jerky just wasn't cutting it.

Here, grandpa takes care of baiting Judah's hook with a hunk of cut up bullhead.

Which was good, because I couldn't bring myself to do the poor thing in, let alone hack it into pieces for bait. Plus they're kind of spiny and will sting you if you touch them. My dad did all of this with pliers and a cookie in his mouth. He's quite the experienced fisherman.



Judah continued to climb the railings, in spite of our warnings about sharks living in the waters beneath the pier, hence the ever-present life jacket.



We figured that even if he did fall in, a life jacket (doing what they were intended to do) would keep him afloat long enough for us to get to him, and he'd likely never repeat that stunt again.

Not that I didn't still lunge towards him with that same feet-stuck-in-buckets-of-cement feeling from nightmares whenever he got too close to the top of the railings, mind you, but for one accustomed to such sensations the feeling was somewhat lessened.

I could actually turn my back for a few minutes and fish.



In spite of the fact that fish just weren't taking OUR bait biting, the day proved to be an adventure in many other ways.

Jeff took the boys down to the nearby beach to teach them to skip rocks.



There was also the beautiful scenery...things we don't see very often way out in the desert.



And the wildlife.

We Frumps are particularly partial to pinnipeds.



And just like the infamous fishing trip of '82 when great uncle Carol pulled up one of these to the delight of all the children present, a neighboring crabber pulled up his 'pots' and found this sunflower starfish inside.



Judah wasn't the least bit afraid to touch it.



Even the underside which had a gross, jelly-like substance in the center where it's mouth is.



Not being what they were really after, the crabbers scared all the fish in the vicinity away tossed it back in the water, and threw their pots in to try again.



Later, they did finally pulled up crabs.

The chicken legs they had cable-tied to the inside of their crab pot as bait drew in all kinds of bottom-feeders.



Judah enjoyed holding the crabs. Or maybe it was just turning towards me with them to hear me shriek.



Finally, after a long afternoon in the hot sun (though carefully covered in sunscreen), my dad was the first to get a bite.



And it was a whopper!

The stuff of legends.

We will be talking about his catch for years to come.



The teensy-tiny little bullhead that ate it's own kind! Ewwww.

Lastly, we drove through my old hometown on our way home.

This is a new structure built since my last visit. It caught my eye when, as the sun was just beginning to go down, I caught majestic Mt. Rainier illuminated in the background just behind the marina.



A beautiful way to end a memorable day.