License to Thrill

My son had his semi-annual heart checkup in Missoula, Montana a couple of Fridays ago.  He was born there, but we moved away when he was 4.  We enjoy going back to visit.  It still feels like home. 

Sometimes I'm a slow learner.  In 2015, I was fortunate to be able to fish in Montana on four separate occasions.  We have plans to spend nearly 10 days in Montana and Yellowstone in August this year, and I'm starting to get a little giddy about the two-day trip my wife booked for me on the Missouri in April.  Fingers crossed that she's coming along.  After my day on the Big Horn River last year, I did a little math and realized that I should have just purchased a full-year nonresident angling license for 2015.  Turns out it would have been cheaper than the daily licenses that I purchased as needed.  With this in mind, Mrs. Fading Angler and I picked up shiny new full-year 2016 fishing licenses when we were in Missoula.

Sure, we could have bought them online, but there's nothing like having that fluorescent yellow piece of waterproof "paper" in your wallet.  It's my license to do what I do.  Rather than:

Bond. James Bond.

You get this:

Angler. Fading Angler. 

 Women may not swoon over me and fish may not fear me, but my drink will always be shaking.  Err, shaken.

Opportunity Knocks Twice, Part IV: A New Hope

This is the final installment in what was planned as a four-part mini-series.  Things didn't quite work out as planned.  You’re invited to start with the prequels if you haven’t read them, but I won't insist that they're prerequisites.  After all, George Lucas started with Episode IV...

• Opportunity Knocks Twice: Prologue 
• Opportunity Knocks Twice, Part II: It's Knot a Problem 
• Opportunity Knocks Twice, Part III: I Am Not Lefthanded 
• Opportunity Knocks Twice, Part III-and-a-Half: Pride and Parkinson's

 A long time ago in a magazine far,
 far away...

Knock knock!

Who’s there?
Opportunity.
Can’t be.  Opportunity only knocks once.

Cute.  But untrue.  In my case, Opportunity is leaning on the doorbell.  My life thus far has been filled with improbable second chances.  I got a second chance with my newborn son, when a doctor revived him after he quit breathing.  Another when he clung to life by a thread for weeks following complications from his first open heart surgery.  Another chance after the accident.  I was 19, and my brother was 16.  I came home from college for Easter weekend on a Thursday night.  In a moment that could have been inspired by “A River Runs Through It,” my brother and I made plans to go fishing the next morning.  We left early, and we didn’t come home for a long time.  One of us never really did come home.

The Great Folks at Sage

Mrs. Fading Angler and I took a quick weekend getaway trip to the Seattle area in October last year.  No real purpose, just a chance to get away for a few days.  We did have a few items on the "might do" list:

• Visit Red's Fly Shop, a 2 hour drive from Seattle, east to Ellensburg then a few more miles south along the Yakima River.  The idea was to scout for future fishing water, and see if they might have any wading boots for her to try on.
• Lunch and beverages at the Pyramid brewpub across the street from Safeco Field.
• A ferry ride out to Bainbridge Island for a quick visit with some folks at Sage.

After lunch, a flight of beer samples, and a pint of the selected barley juice, we waited in line to board the ferry out to Bainbridge.   We've taken probably 20 ferry rides around Puget Sound.  So far, the novelty has not faded.  We arrived in short order at the Sage (Far Bank Enterprises) HQ and hoped that we'd get the same hospitality as we received on our first visit and factory tour in 2012.  We were not disappointed.