Some fishing habits are hard to break, but on Saturday 10,000 anglers were able to bust out of a pattern learned over a decade and a half. After 15 years, the fishing contest had to be moved from Gull Lake to nearby Round Lake in the town of Brainerd which is smaller and has thicker ice. The ice had to support a huge crowd, I was surprised that they had drilled 10,000 holes in the lake, to my mind 10,000 holes with flowing water under it would act like a colander. With friends Mary and Earl we drove past the lake to observe a Major Minnesota Event. It was very cold with temperatures -13 and as you can imagine with that amount of people there was no where to park let alone walk out onto the ice. So we returned home and we prepared to go out on the snowmobiles. First we needed to dress for the part. Then cocooned in borrowed outer wear we set off. Earl, Keith and Mary were the drivers; I was hanging on for dear life a pillion passenger. The atmosphere was beautiful and we set off about 3.30. The light was beginning to fade. At first I had difficulty, my arms are short and I could barely hang on to the handles on the back which were down near my knees. I bounced around involuntarily bounding off the seat. We took off over the road, down the side of the ditch at a perilous angle, through the brush and whoosh across the snow. I finally worked out that I could hang on to the seat back; it wasn’t a very natural stance, however… I managed. We went through the fields of white; past snow covered red barns and heavily laden pine trees. We traveled some 7 miles in all and ended up at a tiny bar in the Polish town of Sobieski. It was warm and inviting as we walked through the door pulling off our helmets and gloves. We were greeted with sideways looks from the patrons sitting at the bar. They became more interested when they heard our Aussie accents and as we sat chatting around the table a patron came up and gave Keith an official Sobieski Bar T-shirt. When we returned to the snowmobiles it was dark, however, I enjoyed the ride home even more than before, the moon was up and reflecting on the snow until the last steep ditch were we did some acrobatics and I ended up down in the ditch. It certain was an experience and we loved it.
The evening finished with the guys sitting around the TV watching the football and the girls in the sewing room talking about quilting…. What else would you expect.?
