A Fishing Weekend

Wow! What a weekend! It was so great to get away for a couple of days. I needed this recharge. Thursday night, I headed up to meet Brian Beckstead for an early morning. I was going to sleep in a hammock, but because there were no trees it made that pretty impossible. I would love to have an ENO car hammock stand for these situations. Instead, I parked in a dirt pull off near the train tracks and slept in my car. My car is still just a little too short to sleep in, but in a pinch, it worked out. Unfortunately, there were several trains that came by and woke me up. But I got about 5 hours of sleep. I arose at 5:30 to get dressed and meet Brian at 6.

We spent the entire day fishing. We fought several fish and a couple decently sized. I had a couple on that made me work to get them. Unfortunately, I lost one that felt like a pretty big fish. Today, I learned how to fish really hard. I was certainly worn out by the end of the day. Brian does not let up when he is out fishing for an entire day. We did not stop for 12 hours other than snack breaks and to change flies. It was great to spend some time with Brian. We haven’t spent any time together since I left Altra.

After we grabbed dinner together I headed back to Utah. I was tempted to just make the long drive home and sleep in my bed, but I knew that I had all Saturday to do whatever I wanted. I didn’t want to lose that. I decided that I needed a mindful day. A day alone in the mountains to think, ponder, and study. I drove to the Mirror Lake Highway and camped in a pull-off area along the Bear River. I was able to get the hammock out this time and boy it was an excellent night. I slept great, stayed nice and warm and dry. I got up slow in the morning, ate breakfast, fished for a bit then packed camp. I drove up along the river for a way and fished some more. Not a lot of action. I only caught one. After fishing for a while I drove up to Hayden Pass and set up my hammock again, meditated, wrote and pondered. This was some great time that was well spent. I enjoy these moments.

There is great value in finding the time to recenter our lives. Too often we get caught up in the long list of to-dos. This can wear us out over time. As we pause and live in the moment we again get centered on our purpose in life.