Two Lessons

I drove up to Three Creeks Lake this morning.  It was only a 16 mile drive because we've been staying in Sisters, Or for a few days.  I usually get up there once a year and put my float tube on that little alpine lake high in the Cascades in search of Rainbow and Brook trout.  It's a fickle lake offering up some of the finest days and then some of the worst.  But...in fly fishing, or rather the Zen of fly fishing, it all has meaning and my task is to be content to learn from what I get.  What I got this day was cold, wet, and very windy.  Wind is the foe of the fly fisher.  It's difficult to cast line because the wind will blow it off course, or back in your face.

 For the float tuber, like myself, it's a double whammy because you get blown all over the place and kick with your fins (we wear swim fins on our feet) twice as hard.  In the end I took a little break after a couple of hours kicking around the lake.  I went back for more, but after another hour, when the wind came up again, and another drizzle left me dripping, I decided to give it another try tomorrow.  The weather in these parts changes from minute to minute.  Life is like that, no?  Here's where today's lesson comes in.  Change is from minute to minute and we cannot predict how something will go.  Just because we've had one experience with a place or person, doesn't mean it will be the same next time.
On my way back down the mountain, in the couple of miles of "Rough Road," I decided to let a Forest Service truck pass me.  I like to slowly wind my way down that washboard surface and sneak a peak at the wildlife and bird life that abounds in that area.  So I pulled over and he went past.  Just as I was about to turn back on the gravel road, my wheels started to spin in a thick pocket of loose gravel.  I was stuck.  A couple who'd been hiking the nearby wilderness trail walked by so I rolled down my window.  The guy offered, "Back up and then go forward.  If you get a running start you'll have a better chance at getting out of there."  It worked.  I came spinning up and over the hindrance and back onto the main road.  For some reason I said to my new friend, "Much obliged."  Where did that come from?  Well, it is the wild West up there.  Lesson number two, sometimes we have to go backward before we can go forward.  Or at least right ourselves.  Pictures to follow.