In the meantime, please take a look at some photos of my recent fishing trip to Canada, plus photos of the temporary Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, PA that we visited on the return leg of the trip.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.

Two summers ago, my brother-in-law invited my dad and me to go on his annual fishing trip to Canada. We camped on an island in Lingham Lake in northeastern Ontario. The smallmouth and largemouth bass fishing was excellent.

I grew up in and around Richmond, Virginia and went fishing fairly often with my father and uncle, either on the Chickahominy River at Ed Allen’s, on the Chesapeake Bay out of Urbanna or Deltaville, or just at the lake in our neighborhood. As an adult, I haven’t fished much at all, so when I was invited on this trip, I readily accepted. It was a wonderful trip; the lake is remote (at the end of a five-mile jeep trail, which begins 10 miles from the nearest small town) and quiet, the fishing was awesome (please don’t go there though!), and everyone we met was very friendly. Plus, I got to spend a lot of time with my then 11 year-old nephew.

To quote my brother-in-law’s friend, “we fished hard”, on the water at 7, maybe back to the campsite at lunch, back out all afternoon, dinner, and back out until after dark. After a few days of this, my dad and I took an afternoon off and sat around the fire for a few hours and just talked. About fishing, politics, our dogs, 9-11, my childhood, his childhood, his parent’s divorce. I told him how much it meant to me that he and my mom were still together, that it was an important lesson to me, and that their example helped me in my marriage. A sometimes angry son, a forgiving father, and several hours alone by a fire.

Happy father’s day.