Hi All!
As many of you know, we have made it to the west coast. This past month has flown by and feels as if we have not stopped going 150 mph. Several things have happened, so why don’t we start at the beginning…
Andrew and I left New York on a Tuesday afternoon and headed west. We made it with little excitement to Cleveland, where we spent the night. We timed the trip the next morning to go through Chicago mid day and enjoyed minimal traffic. Although, I have never seen so many 18 wheelers in one place! They were everywhere!! We decided to stop and camp in Minnesota. We camped in the back of the truck, had a relaxing evening and enjoyed a hearty breakfast on the grill before starting off.
Our trip was short lived though, about 20 minutes down the road the skies opened and the wind came whistling down the lane…oops that is Oklahoma, but still! A large thunderstorm had rolled in with wind gusts of 65 mph; we were being blown into the other lane. We pulled off at a gas station to wait out the storm and an hour and a half later we finally were back on track. We decided that since we were traveling cross country we had to at least stop and do one tourist attraction. We choose to stop in the Badlands of South Dakota, which by the way is a great state to drive through on I-90 there is tons of free entertainment coming in the form of billboards. Literally the WHOLE state is covered from start to finish in billboards, 98% of which are for one store, Wall Drug.
The Badlands were beautiful. We enjoyed an abbreviated tour, including seeing 3 Rattlesnakes, Mule Deer, Jack Rabbits, and a Big Horned Sheep standing at the edge of a rock precipice at sunset (pictured above). Beware, the mosquitoes are torturous and I felt as if I were being eaten alive. We drove on, me itching the bites I had received and decided to stop short of the state line. We stopped in a town called Spearfish, which at the time was inhabited by bikers, bikers and more bikers. Sturgis, the motorcycle Mecca is down the road and the Sturgis festival was the following week.
Our next day was the longest day of the trip; we were coming into the home stretch. That night we would be crashing at our friend Matt’s place (one of the best men from the wedding) in Missoula, Montana. Unfortunately, the 100 miles from the state boarder to Billings, Montana dragged on and on. Once we were past Billings the countdown began. We enjoyed great food and company that night and saw Hell’s Angels on the way! There was another cycle fest happening in Missoula that weekend which corresponded with Sturgis the next week.
The next morning we left on the shortest leg of our journey a mere 3 hour drive to Spokane. We stopped by the ranch in Coeur D’Alene and then headed to the house. Our relaxation period was enjoyable and abbreviated. In a few days we packed up again and piled in the car, this time heading north to Canada. We drove into Vancouver where we boarded a plane and headed to the Queen Charlotte Islands to go fishing. The first few days were rainy and windy. Everything smelled like wet dog. We caught some great bottom fish including Lingcod, Andrew caught a 17 pounder and I caught my limit of them as well! We also caught and limited out on Halibut, Andrew bringing in the big one at 16 pounds. Although the best catch of the trip, by far, was mine…I was bottom fishing in approximately 400 feet of water. After reeling up, for what felt like forever, I saw my great catch, a Sea Cucumber! Unfortunately, the little buggers do not make tasty sandwiches and alas we had to thrown him back. We also caught salmon including two Chinooks and lots of CoHo. The weather on the last two days really perked up and the wind shifted and began coming out of the Northwest. The sun came up and water calmed down. There was quite the array of wildlife up there this year as well. A large number of Sea Lions were inhabiting one of the fishing points, the Humpback whales were in large numbers close in to the short feeding on bait balls, the Seal that popped it’s head up as Andrew and I pulled a Halibut into the boat, and the Killer whales moved in for an afternoon successfully living up to their name and scarring away all fish from the area for a few hours.
We had a close encounter of the large kind one morning. Andrew had played a large CoHo all of the way up to the side of the boat, I was ready with the net to bring it in and add it to our collection. Suddenly, a tan shape began to rise in the water, at first we both thought it was a halibut, and then we realized we were severely mistaken. It was no fish; it was a 1,000 pound mammal and more specifically a Sea Lion attempting to eat the salmon at the end of our line. The salmon dove, so did the Lion, the line ran out and out and Andrew told me to grab the knife and “just cut the line!” The pesky lion proceed to gobble the fish that he stole from us 20 yards from the boat.
All in all it was good fishing, good food and good company. It was a great trip!
We have some more exciting news, as we have been very busy. We have expanded our brood! Upon arrival to the house, we were quickly adopted by a cute and affectionate kitty aptly named Tweak. She had been stuck up a tree for about 10 days and when she was finally rescued, slowly trotted off looking like she was on death’s door. When she showed up at our back door you could see her ribs through her calico colored coat. She quickly took to following Andrew and I around the property, similar to a dog. We took a liking to her and she has become part of the family. She lives out in the shop, enjoying her time outside sunning herself and playing in her large pen.
We also have another addition to the family. This one came a little later, after coming back from Langara Fishing Lodge. Her name is Dora and she is a Labrador Retriever Mix that we got from the local Human Society. She is 10 weeks old and is having a lot of fun romping around playing the yard, terrorizing the quail, and learning all new things. Andrew is hoping to turn her into a bird dog, for right now I am just hoping to teach her the command SIT!
We are looking forward to keeping you all updated on our whereabouts, but for now I must sign off, as there is a long to do list that needs to be started.
I bid you all ado until next time!!!
~Kendall
