28 September 2007

28 September 2007
Hello again from Winchester Bay
Well, crabbing is over for the year. I had days of nine, two and five in the bucket to bring the season’s total to 44. I have about fifteen pounds of crab in the freezer which ain’t all bad as I see it. On my last day of crabbing, I met a game warden on the dock where I keep my boat. He did his usual game wardeny thing and asked me all of his questions the responses to which he punched into his hand held computer. I asked him if it was just me or was this a slow period for crabbing. He smiled and allowed as how the five I had in the bucket made the biggest catch he had recorded in two days. Wasn’t it nice for him to tell the ole’ feller that?
My trusty cell phone stopped taking a charge. It has been harder and harder to plug in the charger and make it work for the last couple of months. All of a sudden it just wouldn’t do its thing. I asked around town about a cell phone store and I was sent to North Bend, twenty miles South. A very nice young lady checked out the charger connection and decided the phone was at fault and probably needed to be replaced. She was nice enough to find the address of the Cingular store in Eugene, an hour and a half drive North. I drove to Eugene and had confirmed that my phone was at fault but the problem could be solved with another “free” phone (with a two year contract). I tried out the phone that was free and I could hear the caller very well so I signed up. When I got the phone home, I couldn’t hear a darn thing. I spent an hour reading the instruction manual but couldn’t find the place that solved my problem. I plan to take it back to Eugene on Saturday when I head that way.
Eugene is on my Saturday path to Bend, Oregon and a visit with Dick and Sally Carroll. We stopped by to visit with the Carroll’s on several crabbing trips in the past and always enjoyed their company. I’m invited to dinner Saturday night and look forward to a home cooked meal by someone other than Bill. Some will remember that Sally and I share the same birth date; day, month and year. We have enjoyed sharing birthday cards for the past twenty years or so.
It has been my good fortune to have had neighbors who only stay for a couple of days and then leave a pile of firewood behind. I have enjoyed a campfire outside of my little home a half dozen nights on this trip. There’s nothing quite like staring into a campfire in man’s eternal quest for truth, or whatever. Everything I have been wearing for the past couple of weeks now smells like smoke, in a nice kind of way.
I crabbed for the last time today and will spend the rest of my stay repacking ‘lil Big Foot and the boat for the return trip, via Bend and Seaside, Oregon. I will have a few days to relax and to prepare myself for the Bridge Director’s Class which begins its three days of sessions on October 3. I haven’t the slightest idea of what I plan to do. I guess I’ll ask my new GPS system to lead me to the local POI (points of interest - that’s GPS talk) and go from there.
Life gets grander by the day……………………
Love to all,
Grandpa Dad