The summer of ’26 has been an odd one for me. That fact hadn’t hit me until I went fishing yesterday and realized that it was the first time I’d been on the river all year. It is early August, and ordinarily I would have been out a dozen times by now. Part of the reason for not getting out has been the poor air quality because of the fires. Part of it has been because I bought a new car and have yet to furnish it with a car top carrier for my boats. Part of it has been life happening.
Whatever the reasons, it took only one afternoon of fishing to remind me that I need to get on the water more often. Buzz, Dennis, and I went to our favorite backwater secret spot. It is a fairly long paddle to get there, but worth it. We saw only one other boat once we left the main channel, and we caught seven different species of fish (blue gill, crappie, largemouth, rock bass, dogfish, channel cat, and perch). I usually don’t keep fish caught in the middle of the summer, as I think that the fillets are less firm than those from fish caught in the autumn and winter, but my friends wanted to bring home a meal of blue gills and perch.
We’ve already planned to go out again next week.
While I haven’t done much fishing this summer, I have been riding my bike on any day that the air quality allows me to exercise outdoors. Recently I did something I’d never done before and that was to pedal my usual loop route in the opposite direction. It was more interesting than I would have guessed.
Usually when I start my rides from home, I immediately head for the marsh trails. That way I still get to bike the best part of my route even on days I cut my ride short. Last Wednesday, however, a friend called me just as I was about to leave. He asked me to swing by his house to pick up some festival tickets that he had promised to give me. He lives within a block of the last leg of my normal route, so I biked to his place first and then continued on in reverse direction.
The trip “backwards” felt different enough that I sometimes became disoriented. I even got lost once. I was in the“Robin Hood” subdivision on the far south end of town, and I found myself on Marion Road when I should have been on Nottingham Avenue. These are the actual names of the streets. In addition to Marion Road and Nottingham Avenue, there is Scarlett Drive, Richard Drive, and Robin Hood Drive. The neighborhood green space is called Sherwood Park. (Maybe the guy who named the streets in the subdivision was himself named after his father and has always been known as Little John.)
Biking in the opposite direction meant that all of uphills were down and all of the downhills were up. The last three miles of my usual bike ride have always been hard for me, and I thought it was because I tire toward the end of my workout. I do get tired, but on Wednesday I also discovered that the last stretch of my route is slightly uphill when I do it in the normal direction.
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