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A few months ago, my wife and I decided to get away for a
weekend, just for us. It had been a stressful time. We were
both in between jobs, I had just been discharged from the
military early due to medical problems, and we had other
smaller problems that had been eating away at us. We'd hardly
had any time alone together, and were starting to get short
with one another. We needed a break. My wife called her mom,
and made arrangements for our daughter to spend the weekend
with grandma. Nicky and I decided to take a drive into the
mountains for a few days, to relax, fish, and find each other
again.
Our camping gear was, to put it nicely, insufficient. We
didn't have a lot to spend after paying bills from my last
paycheck, but we had some money we could afford to spend on
ourselves. We picked up a couple cheap tarps, an axe, a
hundred feet of parachute cord, a couple blocks of ice,
6 gallons of drinking water. Put the ice in the cooler,
some food from the fridge, grabbed some cookware and eating
utensils, and threw it in the car. If the weather was nice,
we'd rig a rain fly out of the tarps and parachute cord,
and sleep on the ground on the other tarp. If the weather
was poor, or was too cold, we'd sleep in the car.
We hadn't really decided exactly where to go when it was time
to leave, we had a full tank of gas, and a car that had enough
stuff piled into it so that we could hardly see out the back
window. (We're habitual over-packers. We always take 3 days
worth of clothing, and wind up not changing once. We also
took 2 heavy blankets, plus our pillows, two nice camp chairs,
and other junk I don't even remember using.) Of course, we
also had the fishing gear. I'm bad when it comes to fishing
trips. I can never (well, almost never) get away from home
without at LEAST 2 or 3 rods. This particular trip, I found
myself packing away enough rods for 3 people to each have
a rod and a backup. I had my 3 wt, 4 wt, and 5 wt fly rods,
an ultra light spinning rod, a medium spin-casting rod, and
an old Eagle Claw fly rod that I use as a jig pole. Then,
there was my backpack, filled with the fly fishing stuff
(fly boxes, leader material, extra tapered leader, forceps,
clippers, pliers...) and a tackle box. Somewhere in the car,
we also managed to fit the dog and his necessities.
We hit I-5 around 10 am, heading south from Oregon. We'd done
this same type of thing early last spring, before I left for
the Army. We wound up car camping in the mountains above Green
Peter Reservoir. We caught no fish that trip, but I did get
my wife hooked on fishing again. She also got hooked on my ultra
light spinning rod that trip. This time though, we weren't sure
if we were heading to Green Peter, or Detroit Lake (Detroit
Reservoir, technically). We had also been thinking of staying
on the Santiam River, at a campground I'd visited a couple years
before. We wound up driving through many back roads and a few
dead ends trying to find that campground on the river. Never
did find it. Finally, around 6 pm that night, we decided to go
to Detroit Lake, about 15 miles up the highway.
We pulled into a state campground at 7:00pm or so, only to find
it all full. Checked the other campgrounds, nada. So, the idea
to head to the other side of the lake popped into our heads.
We drove further around the east end of the lake, trying to
find the road to the campgrounds on the south side of the lake.
We found a road that looked promising. It paralleled the lakeshore
for a couple miles. Then the road got nasty. The westbound lane
was closed, slid down the hillside. The road itself was still
open, so we figured we were in for an adventure. A few miles
further up the road, we saw some campers. This was a free
camping area. There were half a dozen groups there, so we
drove further. The pavement gave way to gravel, and a steep
climb. My wife was getting anxious. The road on our right
side had a fairly steep, long drop off. I kept plugging away.
We scouted a few good looking spots, if we couldn't find
anything further up the road. It's amazing how well a Ford
Contour sedan handles old, rutted, gravel logging roads.
That car has gone places that I've never seen people with
more rugged SUVs try. That's probably because it's owners
border on insanity.
We continued on farther, the terrain getting rougher, and
narrower. If we'd had the windows down, tree limbs would've
smacked us in the face. Then, the brush cleared a bit, and
we thought "coolness." Around the bend though, was a little
tree fallen across the roadway. I figured we could get over
it, no problem; it was no taller than a speed bump. My wife,
however, wasn't as confident in the car as I was, nor was
she quite as adventurous at that point. (Maybe being pitch
black by now had something to do with it too.) So, I backed
up, and turned around. We went a few miles back down the
logging road to a nice wide, clear spot on the hillside
above a stream. We made camp there, in the light of our
car's high beams. It was fairly cold out that night, but
clear. My wife elected to sleep in the car, so we cleaned
out the back seat, and reclined the front seats. I gathered
rocks and made a fire pit. Together, we gathered wood for
a fire. Nicky arranged the chairs and put on some warm
clothes while I got the fire going. Half an hour later,
we were roasting hotdogs and looking up at the stars.
We could finally relax, just us.
The next morning, I gathered more wood, finished chopping
up the big log I'd started on the night before, and got
the breakfast fire going. Food always seems to taste a
little better cooked outdoors. I didn't even have to
season the eggs, because they were cooked over open flame.
After finishing breakfast, we extinguished the fire thoroughly,
and started breaking camp. Heading down the road, we came
to a nice stream we hadn't noticed last night. It was very
pretty, with a nice slow deep run. I strung up my 4 wt,
while Nicky tied on a rooster tail. It was her first time
fishing moving water. Neither of us caught anything that
day, but Nicky learned some good fishing lessons. She became
quite adept at the art of dislodging snagged hooks. She
also became good at placing her casts. If only the trout
had been cooperative. We tried the stream a bit further
down too, but with the same results.
Around 2 that afternoon, we decided to head back to the lake,
but couldn't exactly remember which turn in the road we'd made
the night before. So we crossed the stream on a wood and
concrete bridge, and headed up another logging road. Funny,
I didn't remember so many twists in the road...an hour later,
we realized we were nowhere near Detroit Lake anymore. We
also managed to find ourselves a few hundred feet higher
in elevation than we'd been the night before. Half a tank
of gas left, no idea where we were, or how to get back to
where we had been, we were lost. No biggie though, we
pushed on. We'd eventually hit civilization, right?
Another hour past, and we hadn't hit pavement yet, but
suddenly, rounding the bend, a truck, with people! That
gave us a big boost, spiritually. A few miles down the road,
and we'd hit pavement. There were no signs, except for deer
or elk crossings, but we were on pavement by gosh. Then,
a stop sign! And there, to the right, an information kiosk!
We pulled in the gravel lot, and left the engine running
so the fan would cool it off a bit while we looked at the
map. The big red "Here you are!" dot made our jaws drop.
We were only about 10 miles away from Green Peter Reservoir,
and almost 30 from Detroit Lake. So, back we headed, toward
roads we knew. We had a great talk on the way back. And we
felt connected again. Refreshed. We still had another day
to kill, if we wanted to. We didn't have to pick up our
daughter until late the next day. So we drove, no particular
destination in mind. Talking, enjoying each other's company.
We found ourselves in Canby, OR that afternoon. Stopping in
at a Fred Meyer store, we looked at the fishing tackle. Nicky
checked out the rooster tails, and I looked for a new tackle
box, because the latch on ours broke off. I picked up a good
clear Plano box, made to be used in one of the big "tackle
storage systems." After that, we found ourselves back home,
already thinking about our next outing. What mattered most
though, is that we had found each other again. ~ Mark Mckenzie
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