Fishing Trip to Roaring River, MO 9/26/09 - 10/3/09

We landed in Fayetteville after two uneventful flights - nice. We drove up to Roaring River and got here about 3 on Saturday. We made the first of our daily trips to WalMart to get basic supplies.

Sunday we got up and fished. I didn’t catch a thing and Keith brought one in. Fishing starts at 7:30 in the morning, so I am always up for a nap about 10 or so. Keith went back out and caught 2 more, so we had enough for a fish fry that night for dinner. We went into Eureka Springs in the afternoon and spent some time with some interesting artists at the Artist Colony. They rent their spaces from the landlord, JD Harris (of whom you will hear more later, I am sure) and then actually paint, sculpt, carve or whatever they do on the site. They display and sell their work and talk with people as they browse through. His idea was that he wanted people to connect to the art and see it in process, rather than just as a static display. Of course we are thinking, Paige would do well here!

Sunday evening, the rest of the family arrived. Keith’s cousins and their wives: Roger and Beverly, Johnny and Denise (who drove from California) and Tom and Wanda. Tom and Wanda were in their 5th wheel RV and had a campsite so we had a place for our nightly fire. It was clear and beautiful with the half moon shining so brightly it cast shadows. On the way back up the hill, our rental car lost almost all acceleration. Keith had the gas pedal flat to the floor and it was barely doing 10 mph. We weren’t sure we were going to make it and since we were the last ones out, and had no cell phone signal, we would be reduced to somehow getting to the bottom and then hiking for help. It did make it – but just barely. The car only had 20,000 miles on it, so who knows what its’ problem was. Keith called the Avis people in the morning and they drove another car and a wrecker up here and switched it out. We are about an hour from Fayetteville, so that took a chunk out of somebody’s day. Keith told the guy that he wouldn’t trust the car to drive back to the airport even if it cleared up.

Monday morning was skunk day at the fishing stream. Out of 5 fisherpeople (I am the only woman who fishes) only one fish was caught. Good thing we decided on Sunday to have the group fish fry on Tuesday. It was another beautiful day, just slow catching. We caught a ride down to the river with Johnny and when Keith handed me my rod – it was a new rod!

He surprised me with a pink rod and a pink reel that has a pink and a green LED that flash when you reel in the fish. He had rigged it with a purple sparkly wooly and spinner. I was a complete fashion statement, with my pink vest, pink hat, and now my pink rod and reel! Last year I got the vest and now this year the rod and reel of my own. In 35 years of fishing, this is the first time I have had my own stuff. I always wore a vest of Keith’s or his dad’s and used their rods. Now I can fish like a girl! Keith got the rod at Tim’s Fly Shop and Tim said that he is selling out of everything pink. Lady fishers like girly stuff too!

Monday night Tom and Wanda treated us to a Low Country Boil – shrimp, potatoes, sausage, and corn. Good and spicy! She had salad too and we all enjoyed every bit of it. That night a bunch of clouds came in and it was cool to watch them flying overhead, lit by the moonlight.

Tuesday I didn’t get up at 6:30 to fish – I figured they could ignore me just as well later in the day. Keith did and said it was really slow, so I didn’t miss anything. While he was on the stream, he saw an eagle fly right down the stream, fishing too, no doubt. They come to this area to stay the winter.

Keith and I went out fishing for a few hours in the afternoon, but didn’t catch anything. The guys caught enough for the fish fry, supplemented with Sand Bass that Tom and Wanda brought. I made macaroni salad and cherry tarts (from a can), Bev brought cantaloupe, Denise made jalapeno cornbread and brought fresh watermelon, Wanda made broccoli and rice casserole so there was wayyy too much to eat. Another great night for a fire.

Wednesday I slept in again – it was cold and I was just too comfy to go out and fish. When Keith came back in – with lots of fish – we had breakfast and headed back over to Eureka Springs. We stopped and chatted with JD and Kathy and saw how far along their house was coming. It is amazing. I met Sage, their very lovely grey cat. He let me carry him around for about 20 minutes, just purring away, so I got a kitty fix. They have a huge white dog – part Pyrenees Mountain, part something even bigger – a big galoot who is a real sweetie. They also have a female cat who had 2 kittens that were about 4 months old – very cute.

We parked in Eureka Springs and walked the streets a bit to shop and came across a shop that had a sign out front that said, “Working Bunnies Inside.” We went in and asked where were the working bunnies and what kind of work did they do. Yune (she is Vietnamese) has the bunnies up on the counter when a customer buys something. We bought something and she ran the credit card, then held it out to the bunny and he grabbed it with his mouth and turned his head and dropped it in front of Keith. He did the same with the pen, the receipt for us to sign and our copy of the receipt. It was so adorable! Both bunnies know how to do it and both just hop around the shop when not on the job. One was a Siamese velvet rabbit and the other and albino lop eared with a long tuft of hair on her forehead. I petted them both and then I washed my hands thoroughly. My eyes started watering and I started sneezing anyway – allergic to bunnies – not fair!

We toured the Basin Hotel – 6 floors and each one has a ground level entrance – or so they said, I didn’t see them. We stopped in the gift shop for the big cat sanctuary and enjoyed a nice talk with the girl there. She is a zoologist and came there from NY to do her internship and never left. She was telling us about some of their rescues. One lion had been purchased as a cub for $175 by some idiot who didn’t realize it would grow up and be a wild animal. When it was rescued they watched it and it didn’t go to the bathroom for 3 days – when it finally did, it pooped out a plastic wrapper for hamburger that comes in a tube! That is how they fed it evidently. Poor thing was severely malnourished.

We plan to go out there tomorrow afternoon, I think, and see all the animals. They say they are the largest big cat rescue organization in the US with over 100 cats.

We poked in and out of various shops and then headed back to the hotel. We dropped off the bacon we bought to make BLT sandwiches (Bev had given us the most fabulous tomatoes that she had grown) and headed back out to fish. Finally I broke in my new rod! I caught a fish and so did Keith, but mine was a trout and his was a little trash fish. A couple of days before, Keith pulled in a big crawdad – about 6 inches long! I didn’t get to see it as it was one of the mornings I slept in. His lure got tangled in some line that someone had left in the stream and the crawdad was holding onto the line. Keith said he had really big claws.

I cooked trout for dinner that night and we ate 2 trout each. Yum. We fished until almost 7, so by the time I got dinner done we didn’t feel like going down and starting a fire. Tom and Wanda had gone to Springfield and spent the day with friends while Roger and Bev had gone to Branson to shop. So we all just chilled in our rooms until an early bedtime.

Thursday morning I got up and fished and it was an incredible morning. The sun was just coming up and there was enough moisture in the air that we saw a rainbow above the hills – then a double rainbow! Darned if that wasn’t the morning I didn’t take my camera. I took a picture with my phone, so we will see how that turns out. While I was fishing, a strong wind came up and blew hundreds of leaves off a maple tree behind me. The air was filled with these leaves flying around. It looked like a flock of birds. This went on for about a minute. It was an amazing thing to see. The fishing was slow, Roger caught 3 and kept them. I caught one and released him as we weren’t planning on cooking. Neither Tom nor Keith caught a single fish. It is practically unheard of for Tom not to catch – he is like Leo was, a good fisherman.

It looked like rain, and I was concerned that my bright pink hat might run in the rain as it is made of paper, so I bought another hat. This one matches my vest, so I am now totally outfitted. It is a funny hat, it is made of “100% polyester suede,” and is “A Product of Australia,” and “Made in China.”

Thursday evening we all went to dinner at a really good little Italian place that we discovered a couple of years ago – really wonderful food, the only drawback is they don’t have a liquor license so no wine or beer with dinner. I had pesto pasta and Keith had eggplant parmesan. Their garlic bread is to die for – home made bread and real butter, garlic and herbs on the bread – OMG – I ate a lot of it and so did everybody else.

We went down to Tom’s and Wanda’s and had our last campfire – they were leaving in the morning and the campground frowns on anybody using the firepit unless they have paid the camping fee! I suppose we could, but everybody else is leaving in the morning too, so we probably won’t bother.

Friday morning Keith got up and fished at opening and caught and released 14 fish! Tom had said that Friday would be good fishing – Thursday was stormy a bit of the day and a front moved through. He is the sage of fishing. He was sure right – I think Keith caught more on Friday than everybody else combined the entire trip! He came back about 9 am and we had breakfast then went back down. While I was fishing I saw another amazing thing. I was sitting on the bank, watching Keith fish, and noticed spider silk floating in the air. Then there was more and more of it and I located the spider who was throwing it out. He was on top of a weed about 20 feet away, so I watched him with interest as I couldn’t see his nasty self clearly enough to trigger my phobia. It was really fascinating to watch thread after thread being caught by the wind and sparkling in the sunlight. The air was cool and the sun was warm. The crickets were chirping and the water was bubbling over the rockfalls in the stream. What a perfect way to spend some time!

I also caught a rock today. Now usually when you catch a rock, you end up losing your lure because the rock is firmly ensconced in the stream bed and you can’t pull it out. If you can’t walk around and pop your lure free, you have just decorated the stream. This rock I was able to land, however. It was actually the second rock of the trip that I brought in. I have never done that in all my years of fishing and now twice on one trip. The first rock had a tiny hole near the top of it and I hooked it right through that hole. The second one had just enough of an indentation that the hook caught on it. Really strange.

Another amazing thing I saw was a water skipper catching a bug. I was watching them interact – one bug was chasing the others off by running up at them and the would pop up and scoot away. Then a tiny moth fell into the water and the water skipper was on it in a flash, grabbed it and zoomed over to a leaf to munch it down. Tiny hunters!

We made another trip to ES to take a couple more pictures of the rabbits, buy some t-shirts that we had seen before and visit the Big Cat Refuge. It was really an amazing place. They are the largest big cat refuge in the country and have over 100 big cats. They have 450 acres of land and are working to build habitats for each cat that is an acre to an acre and a half. When we first went in we walked around and saw some lions, tigers, cougars and leopards in the standard enclosures and weren’t that impressed. Then we went on the tour and saw the rest of the animals. The tour is about a half mile around the big outdoor habitats for the cats that are lucky enough to live there. As they raise the money to build them, they move the cats in – first come, first served.

We spent the rest of the evening repacking all the stuff and getting ready to fly home the next day. Mom took wonderful care of our new flower garden and our 3 orange kitties. We had thought at first to board Raja, since he is still very young, but we decided to leave him with his brothers since everybody got along so well. They all like each other and take turns playing with each other. We think it was the right decision as there was harmony when we came home. After thinking about it, we wondered if Missy’s aggression toward Sherpa started after we boarded him for a week while we were away. We aren’t sure, but we didn’t want to chance that happening again. By the way, Missy is loved and adored in her new home – her new name is Baby Girl and she revels in being the only cat. Her new mom, Diane, has moved to a new place with a screened porch, so Missy is once again taking in the fresh are. Diane says she never growls or hisses – which she used to do on a daily basis here. She is truly a Princess and I am so thankful that she loves her new home.