Linda's back is feeling much better. She is working hard to get the muscles rehabbed and back to normal. As a result, I had a couple days with nothing planned so I took a little trip down to Pine Bar on the Lower Salmon to fish for steelhead.
On Sunday I loaded a bunch of food (way too much!) into the camper and drove south. Traffic was normal and the weather was great!
Linda and I kept in contact most of the time as I traveled. At stops and restroom breaks I would call or text to keep her posted on my progress.
When I reached the river I checked out the spot that I figured would give me a good campsite and allow easy access to the river for fishing. The spot I was thinking about was already taken so I moved on down to the campground at the end of Pine Bar Road. There I found several rigs camped, so I backtracked a bit and went to a campsite I have used several times before and set up for my getaway.
The site I chose is nice and flat, and is located next to the river, but has one annoying problem. Goat Thistle! This stuff is everywhere and you have to be very careful how you get it off your skin and clothes. If you touch it with your bare hands it will prick you and leave a sliver in your skin that is very annoying. I learned to deal with the Goat Heads by using a stick or the blade of my knife to flick the thistles off onto the ground. This works fine, but you have to be very aware and not touch the heads. Once I remembered about those pesky heads, I could deal with them by avoiding the plants by staying in the gravel around the campsite.
As the day, continued I would text Linda my progress and what I was doing, even though I knew that the texts would not go through. While I was sitting in front of the camper, I heard a familiar little beep and looked at my phone to see that the last two texts had gone through. I had found one strange location at my river campsite where I could send and receive texts back and forth. It was spotty at best, but it worked if you had patience. The location was at the front of the truck on my coffee cup five inches above the ground. Really, that was the only place I found that the phone would send and receive texts.
The weather was fantastic, blue skies, lower 90s. I fished on Monday morning, and as I did, Mike Wassmuth motored over from his anchor across the river and we talked for a while. He is such a dedicated steelheader that he can leave his place in Cottonwood, drive to the river and launch his boat, and then be fishing by sun-up. I was just warming my camper up and he was all set up and fishing.
Mike had to leave at about 10 AM and so I fished on until it got too hot to sit in my spot, even with my umbrella.
I took some time to sit in the shade and used the binoculars to scan the hillsides. When it started to cool I took a walk and filled my water jugs. As I walked by the campground entrance I spotted a rattlesnake as it slithered off into the tall weeds. It was a young critter, about three and a half feet long. It didn't want anything to do with me and I was OK with that.
I walked quite a bit that evening and enjoyed the solitude.
The next morning I packed up and returned home. The weather called for rain and I was lucky to miss most of the showers on the way home. The rain started at about Tensed and was off and on the rest of the way home. I made it home and parked the camper. I really like my little getaways, but missed Linda a bunch when I was gone.
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