Hope - Day 2

Friday, July 23.  We convened in the Brundiges' coach first thing this morning and decided to spend another day in Hope. I told Collins his fans wanted an action shot of him, so here he is at his favorite pasttime - eating.

Marilyn is participating in the conversation too, and you can see that Joe and Collins are happy to be together again.

Joe was lurking outside their coach, waiting for Marilyn to come out so he could jump out and scare her.

But when he jumped up, he lost his footing and almost landed down the embankment on his face.  You can see his foot at the edge of this picture.  It just didn't work out according to his plan.

 So we went for a drive first, back to the area we drove through yesterday so Collins could see the beautiful views.  We checked out one bridge for fish, and I went down to see if there was any gold panning spots there (I was also looking for fish).

But Mazie spotted something shiny in the parking lot, so we picked up some gold pebbles.  Who knows, maybe we found someone's poke as he was leaving with his riches.

 So we went on down the road and stopped at the bridge where we gold-panned yesterday, I picked out a new spot that looked a little more sandy, so out came the shovel, bucket and gold pans, we booted up and hit the creek.  With the same result as yesterday.  (Mazie had Joe sneak one of the gold pebbles from the parking lot into my pan, but I caught him so I didn't fall for her little trick.)

 So we gave up on that excellent adventure (we did not have a permit for today anyway) and went back to camp for a quick lunch and then off to fishing for salmon.  Collins left before we did and he was already fishing by the time we got our licenses bought and found a parking spot.  He did not catch any salmon today, but he was taking any that other people did not want.

 Marilyn was thrilled with this news, to say the least.  (Remember, we have limited freezer capacity in our small refrigerators).  Anyway, Joe, Mazie and I joined the fishing crowd.  Mazie had one on with her very first cast, but she was not able to land it.  She ended up catching 2, and missed 3 I think.  I never got a picture of her though.  Joe caught 3, so Paul, here's the picture of the fish on the end of Joe's line.

 Joe's last one was his biggest, and it got him all muddy when it splashed in the mud flats as he was trying to pick it up to release it.

My fishing success seems to have deserted me.  After having gotten seasick on the halibut trip, I thought I was really due, but I never landed any either.  I missed 3, plus a dead carcass floated by from the cleaning station upstream and got snagged on my line, and I could not even land that one!  A sad day for me.