Two Quick Things

I have started riding my recumbent, again. Need to get into shape and also need to rehab my achilles tendon that I injured about a month ago.

On my last ride, I cruised downtown Cd'A and out the Centennial Trail. On the way back into town, I needed to stop at the restroom. Approaching the area where the bathroom is I slowed way down. I unclipped from my left foot clip and noted that there was a nice parking spot on the grass next to the restrooms. I coasted off the sidewalk and into the grass. Immediately my wheels sank into a deep grassy mud. I abruptly stopped and fell over with a splat. I lay there for a second feeling the cold wetness of the mud circulating through my clothing.

The fall didn't hurt at all. It was like I did a slow motion tip and sunk into the grass. I got up as quickly as I could and looked around to see if anyone had witnessed the event. No one had, that I could tell.

My clothes were covered in mud so I took off my shorts, gloves, and jacket and put them in the bike bag on the rear carrier of the bike. I rode the rest of the ride in my black underarmor tights and bike shirt. I didn't have to stop until I got to my Jeep so no one saw my attire.

At home, I washed my gear and told my story to Linda. No harm no foul.

Speaking of bike rides, we have a friend who just started an adventure. David Groth, a newly retired principal from Coeur d'Alene, is riding his bike around the perimeter of the United States. He says he will be riding about 9000 miles by the time he finishes. It will take him about nine months, or so. If you want to follow him, he has a blog at https://anothergrothadventure.com/.

We have another adventure coming up so check back in a week and see what's up!

Coastal Visitors

We have met a great number of quality people while we stayed in Mexico over the years. Now that we are retired and able to travel we have started to connect with these friends beyond our stays south of the border.  This weekend Iris and Dennis traveled across Washington from Edison to visit with us a couple days, giving us a chance to reconnect.

Though they didn't have much time, we packed as much into their mini-vacation as we could.  On Sunday, we went into Coeur d'Alene to Art on the Green and the street fair, ate at Capone's, and gorged on crab fresh from the waters off Edison.  Monday we went down to NIC and did some SUP paddling, followed by a boat tour of the waterfront of Coeur d'Alene.

It was a very nice weekend and our only regret was that the smoke from forest fires in Washington clouded our skies dampening the beauty of our wonderful area.

The Best People Ever!

(L to R) Me, Jess, Heather, Jon and Alex.

For my first outing after the knees surgery, I was able to accompany some of the most wonderful folks on a boat ride down the Spokane River.  Alex Harris grabbed his pontoon boat and we loaded up the Student Activities staff from NIC for an afternoon of fun and laughs. Jon Totten, the Outdoor Pursuits Coordinator, has resigned his position at NIC and this trip was a kind of farewell gathering.

This group of professionals are the best and I am so proud of what they do and have accomplished. It has been exciting to watch them grow professionally and I am so honored to have been part of their team.

Here are some photos from the afternoon, and a little video of one of the afternoon activities.  You can't go anywhere with this group and not witness some kind of spontaneous mischief.

What I Have Been Up To

Caught this 5.48 lbs. smallmouth bass out of Lake Coeur d'Alene today. I have been going out every other day and fishing for bass and pike.  I caught it on a deep diving Rapala and I hooked it deep. I prefer to release all that I catch but this one would have probably not made it.  

Lake Cd'A Salmon

My neighbor, Steve Nelson, and I went fishing on Lake Coeur d'Alene this morning and we caught four salmon.  Three of the four were legal length for keeping so we brought them home. Lake salmon have to be over 20" to be OK to keep. Our keepers were 22" - 24", and were very fun to catch.  Here are the brag shots.

Editor's Note: I went down to the boat and measured the area where we sized up the fish.  All fish were over 20", we didn't have to toss one back.  I guess it will go down as good karma.

Mineral Ridge Hike

What Have I Been Doing Lately?

Over the big four day Thanksgiving holiday we had visitors, I went fishing and I took a bunch of photos of eagles.  Yes, that is what I have been up to.

My first attempt to capture an Eagle in flight.

The Shadowy St. Joe

This morning when I got up I had no clue what I wanted to do, so I thought about how nice the day was going to be and decided to do something about it.  One of the things I have always wanted to do was to take the boat and motor down Lake Coeur d'Alene and then go up the St. Joe River to St. Maries.

I filled the Jeep with some food and water, the tablet, and the two containers of gas and drove down to the boat.  By 8:30 AM I was on my way. The boat buzzed along at 28 mph on a glass smooth lake.  I whipped past Harrison and spotted the old railroad bridge that is now part of the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes.  Idling forward and under the bride I entered the St. Joe River.  The channel is well marked and before long I was back up to speed.

What a rush! The water was so smooth. The boat moved like a bird skimming the water.  I stood and let the wind chill my skin.  I had my coat on and my hoodie up hoping to dampen the wind chill.  I still got very cold.

When I reached St. Maries I pulled into a city dock, sat in the sun and ate my brunch. What a wonderful day I was having.

I loaded up, turned around and headed out.  Everything was going great!

I followed the river down slowed the engine and idled back under the bridge.  Once free of the final no wake zone I hit the gas and got back up to speed.  Suddenly I heard an alarm.  At first I thought it was my Lowrance so I turned the power off on it.  The alarm sounded again. I cut speed and dropped my rpms down and the alarm stopped.  The outboard was running well, but I could not get the rpms up above 3000 without the alarm. I checked the cooling intake and it was not clogged. I was baffled.

I chugged into Harrison and docked at the public dock.  At this point I checked the oil and it was exactly where it should be. I raised the motor and checked the cooling intakes again. No luck.

I idled back onto the lake and bumped my speed up until the alarm sounded and then backed off a bit.  I was able to travel at about 6.7 mph so that is what I did. It was slow but I was able to head home.  While I traveled I posted progress reports to Linda and Alex Harris so that folks would know how I was doing.  The morning was so fast and exciting, and the afternoon was slow and boring.  The positive side was that I was running on glass water and the sun was so warm I had to strip down to my T-shirt.

I arrived home at about 4:30 PM.  It felt good to be back and I could relax knowing that I made it.



After putting the boat away I drove home smiling all the way.  It was just another adventure that worked out and I can check "boat the shadowy St. Joe" off my bucket list.

The First Day

Just minutes before the sun rises.

This morning at 4:00 AM the alarm sounded and Linda and I rolled out of bed.  For months I have been trying to figure out just what to do on the first day of my retirement. I was watching TV one night a few months ago and a commercial came on that showed photos of sunrises taken by people on their first day of retirement, Linda and I looked at each other and said "That's it!"

Sunrise over Canfield and Coeur d'Alene.

We were at the boat at about 5:00 AM with breakfast in our packs, and smiles on our faces.  I have to admit that the past couple months have been a bit strange.  The retirement process at North Idaho College is what I would call a non-process.  For having been at that institution for over 33 years, one would think that there would be an exit interview, maybe a note from HR stating processes you needed to complete before you go, or even a meeting where someone collects your keys!  Nothing!  I went to work my last day and said good bye to a few people, had breakfast with some of my staff, went swimming with Heather and Michelle, turned on the auto reply on my emails and then went home.

Happily retired.

We motored out on to Lake Coeur d'Alene as the sky lightened in the east.  I turned off the ignition and we sat quietly watching the changes in light and color of our beautiful surroundings.  Linda has been so wonderful about all this retirement stuff.  Last night we were invited to have dinner with Darren and Marcy Upchurch after my last day of work.  I came up with the idea of taking the boat and motoring down the Spokane River to their house for the evening.  It was a full moon and I had always wanted to (1) take the boat down to their house and back, (2) drive the boat after dark in the light of the moon.  Last night we did both.

Lovely Linda supporting my first day dream.

Marcy made a wonderful Thai Chicken dish which we ate while over looking the river at sunset.  We talked and laughed about what I might expect in the next year.  I admit I am a bit excited.  At about 9:00 PM we climbed into the boat turned on the running lights and chugged up river.  I will admit it was quite dark on the water, even with the full moon shining.  The night was cool but there was very little breeze.  Everything went great, but if I were to do it again, I would get some kind of 10 bazillion lumens spotlight to light the way.

At 5:25 AM the sun poked its way over the tops of the mountains east of the city.  We took photos and drank coffee and tea as the new day dawned. As soon as the sun was up we started the engine and scooted over to just off Arrow Point where I set up my fishing rods, dropped the down riggers and started to fish.

I circled and fished, until about 9:30 AM, as Linda basked in the sun reading.  I think I am going to like this retirement thing!

Dan Covey in his new boat a fishing first.

Reading while I fish.

Countdown concluded.

6 & 6

 Went fishing with Darren today and we caught 6 Bass and 6 Pike.  We actually had two doubles today.  It was a great day on the lake.

We moor the working boats here.

The first Bass if the day.

Darren's Pike.

Our double.  Note the small fish puked up in the water.

Darren with Dean's Pike.

Big Bass

Yes, that a big girl!

The big one is 22", that's a fish!

Anniversary Pike

28" Anniversary Pike, humm...

Pulled a Guy Out of the Water Today.

Did you know that this weekend was the weekend of the Gene Fink Memorial Chinook Derby on Lake Coeur d'Alene? Well to tell you the truth I didn't know myself until I stopped into Black Sheep Sporting Goods and the checkout guy asked me if I was entering the big derby?  I laughed and replied something like , "are you kidding?" grabbed my stuff and headed back to the college.  

When I got back after my lunch shopping break I stopped by to visit the Outdoor Pursuits gang and when I mentioned the tournament to Jacob he got excited and said "Let's enter!" I laughed, but he was serious.  We talked about it and decided that we could go out and fish without actually being in the tournament, that could satisfy our fishing desire without costing us the $20 entry fee.

So on Sunday at 9 am I picked Jacob up and we went to Higgen's Point and launched into our first not quite fish tournament experience.  We motored down Lake Coeur d'Alene to just past Driftwood Point and dropped our down rigger balls to about 90 feet.  I spent some time explaining the entire rigging process as Jacob watched.

The sun was out and the boat was warm, there was a bit of a wind out on the water, but it worked with us because we were going North, South on the Lake.  We were geared up with small squid lures called Mexican Flags and were trying to find the fish that were said to be about 80 to 105 feet deep in the lake. 

Keep in mind that this was my third time out fishing for Chinook and so far the biggest I had caught was 18 inches.  For a Chinook to be a keeper it has to be over 20 inches, I have yet to find one of those critters.  We worked our way down the lake until we noticed that everyone had turned around and headed North, then we did the same.  We heard that there were about 80 participants entered in the tournament, to us it looked like about 20 boats in this part of the lake.

We chugged along at 1.7 knots and checked our equipment periodically, ate some snacks and drank a lot of coffee.  Nothing hit so we talked about moving North and seeing if we could find something up there.

I made a few directional corrections and suddenly Jacob spotted something to our left towards shore.  It looked like a boat with a cover on it tied to a buoy.  It didn't make visual sense to us so we kept looking as I turned toward it.  Jacob confirmed that it was a boat that had capsized and there was someone in the water.

Jacob said, "Big man in little PFD."

I turned the boat over to Jacob and he started driving towards the accident.  I pulled up all the gear and got it stowed just in time.  Another boat, a small open 14 footer had arrived and tossed the guy a PFD, but he was to small of a boat to get the guy out of the water.  We came in and was able to grab the guy in the water and drag him out into our boat.  Keep in mind that the water temperature was about 44 degrees and air temperature was somewhere around 35.  The guy was very cold and extremely lucky.

Once we got him into the boat a third boat came up and tossed us a sleeping bag and a blanket.  Jacob helped him get his clothes off and wrapped him in the blankets.   I motored off to take him to Loff's Bay where we met the Sheriffs boat and a bunch of EMTS.  Once at the dock everyone waited as he was checked out and given the OK by the emergency medical folks.

His story said that he had a bit of water in his little boat and he was turning down wind to get in position to bail it out.  As soon as he made the turn, the waves came over his transom and within seconds he was sunk.  All he could do was get out away from the boat so it didn't hit him.  He said we thought he was in the water about 10 minutes before we plucked him out. 

As he warmed up and all the paperwork was filed I talked to the Sheriff and found that he had been a student body vice president when he attended NIC.  I remembered him well and we chatted about the college and how it had changed.  Jacob was glad to meet him too, they work close to the Sheriff  during the NIC adventure race so it is good to know the folks in the boats.

We were at the dock for maybe two hours and when the fellow was warm and ready everyone exited our boat and we went on our way.  It was nice to have been available to help in a situation that could have been very bad.  It was a good conclusion to a day with no fish, we drove home, loaded the boat and started telling our tail.

Can't Find the Big Ones