Free Wheelin’ (Last Days of Summer)

I slept in on purpose—a rarity anymore. Then I took my coffee and breakfast on top of a topo map spread out on the kitchen table. I had no plans. No obligations. No company. A full day to burn. The only plans I had at all, on this last day of August, was not to leave the mountains. There would be no cell reception or flat-land heat today. No people, traffic or bustle. Just canyon time. Me time.

 I have not lived here—in this cabin up in the mountains—for very long. Maybe a month. Give or take. But it is only a half-hour drive down the canyon road to Boulder…where I moved from. So my new surroundings are not completely foreign to me. I have driven up these roads and fished these streams countless times. Always had a place I was headed, though. Always a destination. Never just opened a map and took a stab. Or went where the coffee rings suggested. Until today…I live up here, now. I have the luxury of such deliberate indecision. Gonna go free wheelin’.

 Packed light. One tin of loose flies…dries, mainly. And my favorite 3 weight. Strung the rod, chose the fly and tossed the rig into the bed of my truck. Quick stop in for gas at the canyon “catch all” down the street. The vet clinic, liquor store and Post Office are all there, too. (I just needed a fill up…and some jerky.) Then back on the road. To a random, gravel pull off near the sound of rushing water. A new stretch of trout stream I have never seen before…one stretch among hundreds of stretches. And this one looks good. Mayflies are landing on me before I can make my first cast. Gonna be a good day…

 Gonna be a really good day. The water is still higher than it usually is this late in the season—even up at this altitude. So the wading is not simple. I risk serious mishap from time to time…and bash my shins. Gonna have welts and a limp in the morning. Oh well…’cause the trout are rising.