06.13.08
Yreka the Beautiful
My Dad came up and visited us; it was awesome.
He took the Amtrak up from San Diego, a nearly 24 hour trip/adventure with a sleeping car. It sounds really cool and the line he rode goes all the way up to Seattle. If only they allowed dogs, it would be a perfect traveling option, as the route is beautiful and he said the food in the dining car was excellent.
He took some great pictures while he was here, I’ve uploaded some to the flickr album: click any of the pics in this post to see them bigger and see their neighbors in the albums.
We drove around the county a bit and showed him a small portion of the beauty that is this area, and Tuesday we drove around with “our” realtor and looked at a few places for sale, including the ones on our short list.
Seeing them again really helped us make a decision about which we wanted, and I’m really excited. I do hope we can get an offer accepted and financing secured, but my heart will not be broken if it falls through…because frankly, it’s all a bit scary.
So we celebrated Nick’s birthday, we napped, we played frisbee with Tahoe, and basketball at the Y, and together Nick and Dad put together a shortlived Supercub r/c plane. (Note to self: Do not go into a dive and then attempt to initiate a loop when flying inside a foam plane. But it was kind of awesome to see happen from the outside and on the ground. And not directly underneath.)
Generally, we just enjoyed the peace and quiet of the small town life with sighthounds together. Dad marveled at the quiet, while at the same time missing his rowdy little pack, I know.
Mostly though, we went fishing.
It was a lot of fun. I haven’t been fishing in years, since the last time Dad and I fished together I think, and it was great to relearn or learn new stuff.
We caught a lot of little blue gill at Bass Lake at the nature preserve in Montague, but we dropped them back.
We fished at Greenhorn Lake here in Yreka yesterday and the fish mostly ignored us during the afternoon, although there were some fish being hauled in not thirty feet away from us, so it must have been something personal the fish were holding against us…then after Nick went to work, Dad and I went back to give it another shot and I caught a rainbow trout on my first cast.
It was awesome. But seemed pretty small. I know now though that it’s a good size for pan frying.
We deliberately left the camera in the car, because NOT having one means we would catch some keepers, and this strategy totally worked because Dad caught a rainbow trout immediately after I did, about the same size.
I caught another, about the same size but maybe smaller, and it unhooked itself right as I got ready to lift it out of the water.
Oh well.
I was relieved–my fishing with Dad before has all been catch and release bass fishing at the Jamul lake/pond and a couple deep sea fishing trips where we didn’t keep much ( I caught a lot of mackerel, which we didn’t keep, and a rockfish, which we did, and I can’t remember what Dad caught in between keeping me from accidentally smacking the other sportsfishermen with my fish and/or pole) so in comparison, these trout didn’t look like keepers.
Dad got lots of hits, but the fish were tricky and kept getting off the line really fast. I hooked one of a good size (trout are strange, there’s really not much pull from them, just a stuttering of the line and a little extra weight) and got it up, walked over with it to show Dad and tell him smugly that he had some catching up to do…but when I went to put it on the stringer, it got away. I even stepped into the lake to chase it, felt stupid, and let it get away. D’oh.
I hooked another relatively big one, but it got away just as I went to pull it up. The hobo next to us landed a giant trout, maybe fourteen inches long and fat. We fished on with renewed determination as the last rosy-fingered remnants of the sun slipped from the sky and the darkness descended.
Dad hooked, landed, and successfully placed on the stringer the biggest one of our catch and I was right proud. 
I suppose it doesn’t look that much bigger but it was significantly fatter. And 10.5 inches long or so, whereas the others were around 9 and flatter.
The best part was bringing them home when he taught me how to clean them.
Really cool. We cleaned them together (oh, and how Tahoe whined. He wanted one so badly, but there’s a bacteria carried by a parasite that can be carried by our freshwater fish that can kill dogs so as much as I wanted to watch Tahoe chomp on a fresh fish head, it was not to be.) and rinsed them and packaged them for later eating. And of course, we had to take pictures.
A fish horror film.
I had to relinquish Dad at the train station this morning at 2am, and this afternoon, I fried up the trout for lunch. They were good. I’ve never had trout before, let alone fresh local rainbow trout caught and cleaned by ourselves. So really, better than good. I love the pretty translucent bones.
I used this recipe. Simple. Good.
I’m really looking forward to the next time Dad visits, hopefully with Juana, and maybe we’ll be in our own home…which will undoubtedly be smaller and in the process of fixing up, so we’ll be doubly happy to see the extra pairs of hands ;)…so we can show them Ashland and we all can do more touring. We didn’t even check out the dam! It is just so gorgeous up here and I love seeing the area with fresh eyes.
So that’s the biggest of recent goings-on; I didn’t mean for there to be so much trannie time on the blog.
We also had a really nice couple over for dinner whom we met through the local fiber group to talk about real estate; I totally messed up the timing on getting dinner ready and poor Cindy ended up helping make the dessert and Rick carved the chicken because we still don’t really know how. We just kind of hack bits off usually. I’m glad I didn’t know they’ve got professional chefs in the family before, I would have been so nervous! They brought great wine, which we drank more of than we have in ages, and had a wonderful time hanging out here at home.
It’s so nice to have space to have people over. While I like going out to restaurants, I’ve found I really love making meals at home, as bad as I am with timing and planning and all. Now that we have space to enjoy the experience in, and time to keep the clutter at bay, it makes me very happy.
Anyway, this summer’s shaping up to be pretty busy. On Monday is our anniversary, next weekend is Black Sheep Gathering, next month a family reunion in Redding, my birthday, and Jessica and the boys coming up to stay (we’re definitely going fishing and hiking and I hope we can do some camping too) and who knows what after that. And likely, buying a home and moving. Eek.
I’ve started up an indigo vat. (Dad was so grossed out when he found out what was in the beer brewing bucket outside. Later, when I accidentally hooked my Bubble Pullover with my lure, he untangled it, asking, “Now, this isn’t one of those sweaters you peed on is it?” And I had to reassure him that no, no I hadn’t peed on my sweater. I think I’ll have to spin up some of my indigo dyed fiber and knit him a hat…just kidding!) The weather hasn’t been consistently warm enough for it, but it will be soon, so this should be an interesting summer.
And schtinky.
Just fair warning.