I answered the phone about a week and a half ago to discover that I wasn’t the only one suffering a mild bout of cabin fever. Seems that The Eldest Son has felt similar cravings for a bit of outdoor adventure, and his cryptic posts on Facebook was evidence of his malady.
What are you doing next Saturday?” Sean asked. Quickly overcoming the initial but internal questions about where this might be headed and how much might it cost, my feeble response was, “Nothing. Why, what’s up?”
Turns out that between school, work, exercise and sleep, Sean eked out some time last Saturday morning. And good weather was on the horizon. “How about riding the motorcycles?” he asked. Not a problem for me. I was hoping to test out my newly tuned and serviced Honda. Good thing I had found a great motorcycle mechanic, one who understood the sometimes temperamental nature of a 27-year-old CB650SC.
We met up that Saturday morning, about seven-thirty, in Green Valley. The first leg of the trip took us up Hwy 12 to a little bakery in Napa.
After a quick bear claw (and coffee for Sean, orange juice for me), we headed north on Hwy 121 with a plan to veer off midway to Lake Berryessa.
Blame it on the fresh air or the elation of our first ride of the year. We missed the turn. But, and again blame it on the fresh air or our elation, we didn’t care. So it was up the hills and around the curves to Lake Berryessa, past Monticello Dam, which makes the lake possible, and south along Putah Creek, where next fall we hope to be guided by a friend on a fly fishing trip.
Great weather, a good ride, a good time.
It’ll cut into his time allotted to fly fishing, but it’s nice to know that one of our own will have a figurative finger in the pot. Yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer story about G. Edward DeSeve’s appointment as special adviser to the president and vice president to oversee the federal stimulus program ended on a high note:
A fly-fishing enthusiast, DeSeve once said he would go “anywhere there is a trout in the water.”
Yesterday, he said, “I’ll try to make time, but this certainly will cut into my fly-fishing.”
It’s good to see at least a mildly positive spin on fly fishing and government leaders, instead of exasperation and anger.
The fact that he’s a fly fisherman might not be the best recommendation for one charged with such duties by an administration that has stressed the need for truthfulness transparency and accountability. However, that’s countered with the knowledge that Mr. DeSeve quit his City of Philadelphia finance job in 1974 “…rather than follow then-Mayor Frank L. Rizzo’s instructions to balance Philadelphia’s budget on numbers that to him didn’t add up.”
It makes perfect sense to give a fly fisherman leadership of the Obama administration’s efforts to implement the Recovery Act, including the distribution of $787 billion in stimulus funds. Fly fisherman have used stimulus packages for years.
The Stimulator dry fly is a large, go-to dry fly, particularly when you’re fly fishing during a big stone fly hatch or salmon fly hatch. Or when you aren’t catching and don’t know what to throw at ‘em. Does that sound like another type of stimulus package?
“Fly fishermen are born honest, but they get over it.” — Ed Zern
Toyota officials have announced they’re working on a Toyota Yaris hybrid to take on the new Honda Insight hybrid for cheap hybrid supremacy. Muscle Car Wars? Ha! Let the Hybrid Car Wars begin.
Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/c58lau
fishing for words 