Rafting Life's River

Today was spectacular. Rory Conlan and I spent about an hour while we walked, and I managed to pull myself out the calling of walking to make it to my day job.  On the way, I experienced the morning of four suns.

Four Sun Morning - US 98 Causeway - Daphne, AL

We live in extraordinary times. Metal coated flat glass mirrors were not produced until early in the Renaissance in Venice. Due to the difficulty of making plate glass of uniform thickness, they were a very expensive luxury item. There are legends of the Countess de Fiesque purchasing a mirror for the price of a wheat farm she sold to finance the transaction. Today, we have mirrors everywhere. I didn't really notice this till I got out on the trail and started moving a little slower. Now I see them, and what they reflect, everywhere.

Later in the afternoon, I made my way back to Fairhope, AL for another round of trail work, and the day was then bookended with the glory of the universe.

Fellow Travellers - Fairhope, AL

Because of the cloud coverage, I was a little concerned the sunset would be a little dull. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Fishing - Fairhope, AL

People aren't something I normally photograph, but today, down on the end of that pier in Fairhope, the opportunities were just too beautiful to let pass.

Family Sunset - Fairhope, AL

I stood in awe as a raging river of life flowed by as the sun dipped below the horizon. Sometimes...oftentimes it's like that during my pilgrimage training. I raft down the river of life, and the universe brings me just the right things to achieve peace and serenity. I feel like I've discovered an endless river of wealth, and it costs hardly a thing to experience the flow in all it's grandeur. I am blessed, and although I don't know what will happen tomorrow, I have faith that the river of life will deliver just what I need.

Rory Turns Seventy Six

Today was Rory Conlan's seventy sixth birthday. You heard that right folks...a seventy six year old is contemplating walking across the country in the Newport to Newport Transcontinental Pilgrimage. It will be a real gift if we can pull off this feat. We talked briefly on the phone, but I am really looking forward to spending some time out on the open trail with him. I believe it will be good for both of us to get out and see where the chips may fall.

Till then, I suppose we'll both have to get by on what the universe sends our way.  Today in Maryland it was a magnificent sunset.

Sunset Fishing on the Severn River - Annapolis, MD

The sunset as seen from Jonas Green Park on the Severn River proved to be an amazing event tonight.  When I snapped this photo of the fishermen in the foreground, I was pretty sure that I'd captured the best light for the evening. That's not how things worked out in the end.

It Just Kept Getting Better - Severn River Sunset

Ten minutes after I thought I'd seen the best that the universe had to offer, the sky was alight with the fiery expiration of the sun. Suffice it to say that I think the little beach down at Jonas Green Park in Annapolis is positioned quite nicely for a Key West style sunset festival or perhaps a luau.

I hope that Rory's day ended on the same high note that mine did. Soon enough, I hope, we'll be able to compare notes on the unfolding of the path at our feet. Until then, we'll bot keep our eyes open for what tomorrow may have in store.

Getting Sucked In

I managed to let myself get sucked into my day job, career, or profession if you like today more than is normal for me.  As such, there were no really spectacular or even passable photos. Today felt a little like marking time, but I did get in some more walking than I've managed to put together in the recent past.  I also explored some new areas of Marinette, WI this afternoon.

Today is likely to be the last day that I spend in Marinette, WI for awhile, and frankly, I'm a bit sad to see things move forward.  The last several months have been difficult, but I did get to visit some new places, meet new people, and learn a thing or two about fishing in the Great Lakes area.

It's been a good experience, and it's opened my mind to being more excited than not of experiencing new adventures however unplanned they may be initially.

I'm looking forward to heading back tomorrow and getting some business resolved on the home front. I'm ready for fall, but there are a number of things left to do this summer before a new season is ushered in to take it's place.  I'm looking forward to the journey.

Fishing on the Menominee River

This is likely my last trip to Marinette, Wi.  The opportunity to combine my evening walk with a brief fishing outing on the Menominee River proved too much to resist, and I spent a very relaxing couple of hours chasing the sunset as well as a some fish.

Like the last time I was hear, I only landed one small mouth bass (colloquially known as a smallie in this area), but it was a bit better fish than I landed last time.

Smallie - Menominee River - Marinette, WI

This little guy put of a good fight, and the thrill of the catch was worth the cost of getting set up for the opportunity. Spending time out on the river was deeply relaxing, and I'm glad that I've gotten to the point in my life that fishing is a much bigger draw than spending any time at all on watching television or some other form of on screen entertainment.

After hooking this one, I spend about the next half an hour largely practicing my casting, and was rewarded at the end with another great sunset.

Sunset on the Menominee - Marinette, WI

The air has a hint of fall in the air, and there was not a breath of moving air. The sky and the river became one at the close of the day, and if it weren't for gravity, it would have been hard to tell them apart.

Today was  an exceptional day.  Safe travel covering over one thousand miles, the opportunity to pit my wits and technology against some fish, and a sunset that is really quite unbelievable when I look back at the photos. I'm not sure what tomorrow may hold, but I'm looking forward to taking another crack at another good day.  Goodness is all around us. I have not always recognized this fact, but now that I do, my life has gotten much better.  It has become a life centered around the experiences that I have...or even make...rather than the things that I own. It's a lesson that I knew once, forgot for a time, and am relearning as I grow a little more seasoned. I grateful for the relearning that's gone on over the last several years, and I continue to greet each day with the respect for the the opportunities that the day will provide if I'm open to seeing them.

Gone Fishing

As part of my walk today, I decided to spend a couple of hours fishing. As things turned out, I spent a couple of hours mostly practicing my casting, but all in all, I'm not sure why it's taken this long to get a fishing rod back in my hand.

When I was in middle school, I spent three to five weeks with my grandparents in Oklahoma. It was a grand time. I helped grandpa farm, I worked in the thrift shop with grandma, I went to the diner for coffee with grandpa, I poked around in the garden, mowed the lawn with the riding mower (a real treat for me since all I had at home was a push mower), traded baseball cards with my cousins,  rode four wheelers, and shot fireworks on the fourth of July.  Of all those things, the activity I enjoyed most was fishing. Grandpa and I would load up the Dodge pickup and head out to the farm ponds he had access to and fish for two or three hours a day.  

We caught crappie, bass, bream, and catfish. I loved the challenge of fishing. The patience. Trying to get into the mind of the fish. We got to be pretty good at it, and cleaning a mess of bass and deep frying them on the weekend wasn't awful either.

I don't remember the last time I fished. It was a couple of years ago at least. Today after work, I had some time so I bought the Wisconsin DNR license, some inexpensive tackle from Wal-Mart, and headed down to the Menominee River to try my luck.

Fishing the Menominee - Marinette, WI

In terms of my ability to catch fish, my luck was mostly bad. It turns out that the old adage is true. A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work, and the scenery and the weather were perfect. Lest one think I left the river completely skunked, I did manage to latch onto a forty pound small mouth bass known locally as a smallie.

Forty Pound Small Mouth Bass - Marinette, WI

You may be asking yourself, "Why does this forty pound bass look so small?" I'll tell you why. Between the fishing license, the tackle, and the gas for the commute to the river I figure this little palm size fish ended up costing about forty pounds sterling (at the current exchange rate) to land on the end of my thumb.

Sunset on the Menominee - Marinette, WI

You might think that a forty pound small mouth bass is a pretty expensive fish, but I'll tell you that it was worth every penny. I'm looking forward to finding out just what tomorrow has in store for me.