September 6 - Another picnic, all mixed up with Murphy’s Law.

 Be careful what you wish for. Last evening, as the light was leaving, we were sitting on the back deck swing (as opposed to no other swing) and I asked Howard if he would take me to some water tomorrow (that’s today.)

I’m not fussy, I said. River or lake. 

But I didn’t realize it wasn’t going to be summer again today. In fact, my hopes were high enough that I put Downy in the rinse cycle when I did laundry, as I planned on hanging it out on the line.  Of course, that’s when it started to sprinkle. Just a little. 

But he came in from the Man Shed anyway, and asked if I was making sandwiches, so of course I said yes. The little sprinkles didn’t last anyway. 

But when he packed our picnic in his backpack and wondered where his umbrella was, I started to have misgivings. 

One thing about Howard, he doesn’t want to tell me where we’re going, but I knew when he headed down 96 Avenue and turned onto King George Boulevard, we were going to the fishing pier, and the river. It is really nice there, kind of quiet if you zone out the semis pulling lumber from the warehouses on the other side of the railway tracks. 

And we go caught at that railroad track. There was a car ahead of us when the bells started to ring, the stick thing dropped with lights flashing - and the car ahead just zipped around the bar and zigzagged through the one on the other side just seconds (it seemed) before the train tumbled past. 

This part is only ~40 seconds. We were only stopped about 15 minutes, a couple of which was the train just standing still, laughing at us. 

Howard counted 154 cars and I have no reason to doubt that. I do have more video but it’s pretty much the same as the one above. See one, seen ‘em all, they say. Whoever ‘they’ are. 

Anyway, we finally got past, and to our surprise the parking lot at the pier was packed. And more to our surprise, so was the pier. 

So our lovely little picnic spot was overrun with fishing people. And I couldn’t complain as it is, after all, a fishing pier. We went across the beginning of the bridge down, but no farther. I didn’t want to get a fishhook in my head. 

As we were watching, one of the fellows caught a salmon, which was okay, even fish can have a bad day, but watching that jerk punch the fish to death with his fist wasn’t a heart-warming moment. 

The next one that got caught was really small, and we watched the guy take it to the edge, I assumed to toss it back and give it another chance to grow, but no , he just gutted it right there. It would be a two-bite fish. 

So we just went back to the parking lot, where there were a few benches overlooking the river.

After choosing the one with the least amount of cigarette butts and trash, we sat and had our picnic.

 I was munching on some grapes that were in a container between Howard and me, when he asked me why there was a cigarette butt in with the grapes. Honest to God, I hadn’t a clue, but yes, all of a sudden, between grapes, a

butt appeared. 

That was picnic enough for me, so we packed up and headed to the car, throwing the grapes and cigarette butt in the trash can on the way. 

However - it didn’t rain after all, so that was good. And by the time we got home, the laundry was all nice, warm and dry, which was also good.