Goodbye August, Hello September!

Where did August go? In fact, where did summer go? August went out with the promise that we are into cooler fall weather. The last morning of August was a little cool, but not as cold and windy as we thought it was going to be. We started off on a leisurely morning, having already talked about not fishing the night before. We hung around the moho and did some 'chores', but around 11:00 Rick just mentioned, ever so casually, sort of in a whisper, "Do you want to go fishin?". I smiled and one minute later I had the long pants off and my fishin' uniform on. With it being Labor Day weekend there were 2 other campers now in the campground, besides us, and they were fishermen. I wasn't sure how many people would be in "our little stretch" of river, but I left Rick getting his gear set up and headed off to the river with the dog. (I'm the luckiest person to have Rick to care for me.)

There were people fishing and I saw a fisherwoman I met before and she pointed out rising fish upstream that she couldn't get to. She was also nymph fishing and I was dry fly fishing. Anyway, I waded out to the middle of "Mickey's Corner" and cast to rising fish for a few minutes before Rick arrived. He checked on me and went upriver, above 4 other people, and he proceeded to land 3 or 4 trout. And he missed a number of others, using a size 22 Griffiths gnat. A couple of fishermen moved in behind and up from me to nymph fish. I missed a couple before I hooked a nice brown trout. I started backing out of the river with it and looked for Rick and saw that the 2 guys had stopped fishing and were watching me. I mean really watching me. I sort of gave a wave and said "finally." I brought it to the bank, released it and went back to fishing. The 2 guys moved upriver and away from me when some others left.

The wind picked up a little and it started to rain, really just sprinkle hard. I didn't care much since the bottom half of me was soaking wet. Rick came down to where I was and I pointed out some fish and he started fishing to them, a fair distance away. As the water keeps receding, it's gets easier to cast to the far bank. Rick hooked a couple fish and I hooked a couple fish, and it 'sprinkled' off and on for a while. Our upper halves were getting colder and Rick said a couple times "whenever you're ready" which is his way of saying he's ready. The couple fish I was trying for were tucked under some grasses that had built up and the protective currents were making it difficult to get the fly to them with a natural drift. Out of the corner of my eye, upriver, I saw a ring form on the water in a back eddy of still water. There were grasses completely encasing the still water and it seemed no current was directly flowing through there. I gently cast my fly into the still water, but nothing happened. I thought I'd just seen a bug on the water perhaps. I went back to fishing, but again caught sight of the ring on the still water. I turned and for a second time I quietly put my size 22 spinner where the ring had been and BAM! I had a big rainbow tail-dancing! I looked at Rick, fishing about 15 feet from me, and he'd been watching me. He had a big grin on his face and I said "I don't know who's more surprised, me or this fish!" After only a few seconds that seemed longer, the fish was off. Although the rain had stopped, the temps had dropped and we'd had about an hour of good fishin'. Yes, I'll be sure to put a fly into the still water next time we are there.

I made a spicy pasta dish with fresh roasted green chiles and Alfredo sauce for dinner. The overnight temps are supposed to approach freezing so Rick has taken precautions to keep us from freezing (the water hoses, etc). We awoke this morning, the first day of September, to more sprinkles, cold temps (36*), and thankfully no wind. However, it's been a day of reading, a DVD movie, and for the first time, having the electric heater on. I made blueberry pancakes for breakfast and lunch was grilled cheese sandwiches with creamy corn and roasted pepper soup. We're supposed to have cold weather for a couple more days. We're getting more extreme temperature swings, with a couple days of cold and then a couple days of warm. September is supposed to bring great fishing conditions.

A lot of the time I feel we're on vacation, an 'eternal vacation' as our friend Nan says. After 8 months of being retired and living in our motorhome, we're happy campers! We love living in our motorhome and these cold days when we spend a lot of time in it we feel like we are just living life. This is our home. We're not on a vacation, but really living.