Firsts

finally!!!! today was a few firsts for me up here in alaska. today i got to float! and fish! and row! and it was so fun!!!! rob flew me out this morning to meet louie who got to camp last night to watch the gear that we floated back today. so by 8am, i was at the buckstock pickup. louie and i fished, and walked bear trails in the woods and fished and ate. i had 3 bites, and got the lure tanged in brush 3 times. i didn't have waders on, but just rain gear so lou had to rescue it. he also had to pull me out of the mud twice, i lost my boot it was so deep. lou caught a nice silver, then we packed the raft and started off about 12:30pm. we were told to take our time and stop and fish along the way, so we did and it was beautiful. it rained for most of the morning, then stopped and was just cloudy and chilly. it didn't even matter though. at one of the holes we stopped at, i caught my first silver salmon! i was so proud. i'm sure it will taste as good as it looks. along the way we saw a gray wolf, the fish police (who did pull us over), and it just so happened that he knew who i was because his wife goes to yoga. pretty sure that's why we didn't get asked to show our fishing licenses. we also had to pull over at least 4 times so i could sneak into the woods to use the "loo". the bear tracks were huge. i mean huge. didn't see any. then i got to row. never done this before and it is hard. it hurts, and it's hard, hard. it was real slow moving for a long time, until lou got antsy and we had to book-it. we arrived at the point at 9:30, to which we found out rob had just left in his plane b/c he was worried. well, he did tell us to take our time, but i guess we took too much. so the end to a really great day ended with the boss being angry with us for taking too long. and all i have to say about that is...maybe he should try rowing over 20 river miles with little to no current for 7-8 hrs straight. he has never done this, ever. still, i'll take the beating tomorrow and i really don't care because it was well worth it!