If you remember, we diverted from The Plan and are now heading south to fish the Deschutes River with a guide and a boat. Interestingly, on this stretch of the river, you are not allowed to fish from a boat. You float the water and then get out and wade fish. We were totally cool with that and were looking forward to spending a day on a river that Dave “had always wanted to fish” — but didn’t seem to know that we were camping on.
In the course of planning the float trip, we decided to camp at the fly shop because they told us over the phone it had shade. Who knew that those simple words would ever hold so much sway for us?l It’s truly the only thing that matters right now. DOES IT HAVE SHADE? Yes? Done.
It was — and I am not kidding or exaggerating here — 109 degrees at the take out point at 4pm. It was 106 degrees at camp. Remember “Jennie don’t do no 106 degrees”? That is now a false statement. Jennie does. Jennie did. Jennie don’t like.
The fishing was … not great. It was still fun. It is a beautiful river. The guide was a really nice guy who grew up in Minnesota. The water was clear and cold — very different structure and vibe of rivers in Colorado, which was cool — but the sky was an unrelenting blue, the air was a furnace and the fish were scarce. It became a long day. At some point, Dave had realized he lost his license somewhere along our travels so far and was pretty bummed about it. The guide never stopped talking (and not about fishing, which we would have welcomed), and we were just really, really hot.
We learned about the assassination attempt on the drive back to camp and all the feelings that came with that news. By the time we got to camp, we both needed some alone time. I grabbed my chair and embarked on a very hot walk about a half mile to the river and set myself up under an over-hanging tree in the water and tried really hard not to let the thousands of caddis moths landing on me gross me out too much. Because aside from that, it was truly heaven. The water was cold enough to make my feet numb while the wind that blew across my face was hot enough to dehydrate rosemary. I’m not kidding. That’s the temp I set my dehydrator at to dry fricken’ rosemary.
After Dave did what Dave needed to do to decompress, he joined me in the river. And even brought me beer on ice! Ahhhhh. We tried to wait out the sun before heading back to make dinner, but it was almost 8pm, so we faced the furnace and headed back. The next hour was tough — though the dinner was AMAZE. Gotta give a shout-out to my garden broccoli which was transported in our carry-on all the way from MSP and then survived another week+ in a cooler and was eaten tonight and SWOONED over.
After the sun went down, we were able to take showers and cool off in the “Camp Showers” — repurposed side-by-side Satellite Port-A-Potties — which were actually quite nice. (Maybe we fried some brain cells today?)
Dave somehow defied nature and the heat and got to sleep quickly, but I had to wait the heat out a bit more. Happily, the wind picked up to help the situation out and I finally fell asleep around 11:30, lulled by the mind-number sound of trucks whizzing by on the highway below us.
Mike Stephan says
Had the Deschutes River given up some of its fish, would the Broccoli and Pork Chops been postponed for a different supper? (Supper is the more traditional name for dinner by most Minnesotans. Look it up)
Jenmenke says
@Mike: we DID buy a filet knife in Prince George. But I think it is waiting for salmon for its christening. Despite many people bemoaning our catch and release stance, it’s mostly because we don’t love trout. Not sure why?