August 29th: Based on Laura’s weather forecast which included increasing wind for the rest of the week, we decided to head on down to the lake and try to get some fishing in before the flotilla took over (the hordes of weekend people on kayaks and sups). Frank took the boat down and we walked with the dogs. All the good spots were take by campers, so we ended up further down the lake.
Susanne and Frank headed out in the boat and Laura and I were in the float tubes. I didn’t have any flippers, so they had to tow me out to the good fishing spot. The second we got there the wind kicked up and I had no hope of staying in place, so I just let the currents of the world drift me along down the lake.
At one point I heard a big hoot out of the boat. Maybe Susanne had a caught her first big trout perhaps? Then I heard her say she had lost it. Bummer. A few minutes later, there was another big “Woohoo!” and this time she had landed herself a very big beautiful Rainbow.
I ended up drifting all the way back to camp, but I had no luck fishing. I did see this very cool red fox wandering along the shore. I think foxes are some of my favorite animals on the planet. We had lunch and fished the shore for a bit. I caught one very large trout and one other one. Day complete!
That afternoon, I decided I would go for another bike ride around the ranch. The only tricky part about riding on the ranch was navigating through the exit gate which has a big cattle guard and no easy way to get around it. I got to the gate and started to work my way around it. There were two deer standing on the other side just staring at me.
To get over the gate, it requires lifting the bike up on to the cattle guard, then putting one foot on the guard and trying to hoist yourself up without either losing the bike or crashing through the slots on the cattle guard.
My bike started to tip over and I over reacted causing my leg to slip off the metal slot allowing my shin, at high speed, to crash against the metal as it went down into the depths of the cattle guard. To say it hurt would be an understatement. My response to this tragic set of events was to let out a loud string of F bombs that lasted for long enough that the two deer became offended enough to move away in disgust.
Ugh. I assessed the damaged and after a few minutes decided I was still fine for continuing on the ride. What a dumbassian. The rest of the ride was quite pleasant.
[Editor’s note: Later on in the evening as Roger was re-telling the story, Laura pointed out that there were less hazardous ways to get through the gate, such as climbing over it sans bike, and punching in the code on the keypad on the other side, and THEN retrieving the bike through the open gate.]
Sadly, the smoke started to move back in a bit so I did not attempt any more star shots that night.
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