we can't have it all...or can we?

I caught my first fish here in Wyoming...But not if fish and game are asking. If there asking, I haven't fished since I've been here. I was up this little creek, (the same little creek where I hooked myself in the eyelid) fishing this little hole, and end up pulling a little Brown Trout out. Didn't eat it, but I crossed over a barrier in the fly fishing world for sure. The weather has been beautiful during the day, and cool and clear at night (perfect for sleeping mosquito free).

So I'm applying for jobs and all that..and on the applications they want an address. (Go figure..) So I go to the Post Office to get a PO Box and they tell me I need an address for that too... Still trying to figure this one out, but my best idea so far is to go to the homeless shelter and see if I can use thier address. I am having some pride issues with that, so we will see how it turns out. Any thoughts??

Ok, so it wasn't a life changing experience or anything, but it's a good story and I'm going to do my best to tell you about it. Friday afternoon I am napping in my hammock in a nice spot, in between 2 trees right on the river. I hear voices and look up to see a kayak, a canoe, and a raft float by. We exchange greetings and they continue down the river. That was all the motivation that I needed. So I packed up camp and set off to drive down the street to run the lower Gros Ventre. I drop my boat off, run my shuttle, and then get picked up by a suburban full of girls, get droped at the put in, and paddle the run bymyself. The water is sooo much lower than the last time I ran it. Anyway, I have a good run, debating whether or not to go again, decide not too and I take my gear off. About that time a caravan of rafters, canoeers, and a kayaker shows up. The same people I saw floating from my hammock. So I get my gear back on, hitch a ride up, and end up doing 2 more laps with these people. Were having beers in the warm springs afterwards and this dude in a Breedlove guitar tour bus shows up. (A bit out of place in the wilderness if you ask me) Anyway, we introduce ourselves and start talking. A bison comes to soak in the warm springs, so we called it good and move to the parking lot for another beer. Eventually Somer (the raft chick) heads back towards town and the rest of us set off to go make camp. So with Phil and Thad from Utah, and Brandon in the tour bus in tow, we set off to find a spot to accomidate a 50 ft fully loaded tour bus full of thousand dollar guitars. It doesnt take long to find a good camp site, and we get dinner going and were just hanging out over a few beers...well that turns to whiskey and before long its 2am and time for bed.

The next morning we wake up and go meet up with Somer and her friend, and we get Brandon all geared up and shove the boat off down the creek. We have a good run, and then go to meet Phil and Thads' friend. We get Brandon geared up and stick him in a kayak this time and try to teach him how to roll. We do the snake daily run and it turns into an all day ordeal. I mean, were talking complete junkshow! Between the booze, the inexperience and the messing around, we spent most of the day chasing down runaway canoes and kayaks. This hydrolic they call Taco is in now, and it is awsome. Just a munching, retentive, almost 0 consequence, half river wide hydrolic. So Phil paddles his canoe in for the surf. Quickly gets gobbled up and he's out of his boat, just getting worked in the hole. I paddle into the hole to try and help. So here I am side surfing this hole, Phils canoe is just getting recirculated back in the hole and Phil is taking a decent beating, comming up long enough for a breath and getting sucked back under. So I'm in the hole in my kayak, holding on to Phils canoe (not real sure of how to fix this problem), Phil is getting thrashed appearing for a half second at a time, and then all of a sudden he's gone, and he is not comming back up... I start thinking that he's screwed and I'm going to have to go for a swim to go find him in the whitewash, but then he gets spit out downstream. Anyway, Phil is safe but his 11 ft boat is still stuck in the hole, with me holding on for dear life trying not to flip my own kayak over in the process. Eventually the canoe and I get worked free and everyone has a good laugh on the bank. Somer decides to give it a shot in her raft with Brandon. Those two get worked for a while too, but there ok. I surf the hole with another kayaker for a bit and then we continue down stream. We stoped for a bit in a big eddy and I tried paddling and rolling one of the 2 whitewater canoes. I can paddle just fine...it's the rolling back over that is tricky. It doesn't make much sense to me why someone would canoe when they could kayak (especially with the drawbacks of a canoe, but whatever, to each his own. We end up meeting another raft full of people floating down and they feed us more booze and eventually end up giving us a ride back to the trucks. That night, Somer, Phil, Thad, thier Buddy from Utah, Brandon in the tour bus, and me all camp out along the Greys. We all dig around in our food boxes and come up with an excellent dinner. (desert was a trout Brandon caught minutes prior). I cleared the 10 guitars out of Brandons shower in the bus, and he let me take my first hot shower in 3 weeks. Slammed a pbr mid shower and got out feeling like a million bucks. The rest of the evening was spent by the river, hanging around the fire, under the stars, in great company, and listening to Phil and his buddy playing music on 2 of Brandons 50 something guitars. After a long day on the river, it was a close to perfect ending. Brandon traded Thad a guitar for a kayak and it was a great trade all the way around. Brandon is hooked! Since technically he is supposed to be touring around publicizing Breedlove Guitars not bumming around with a bunch of boaters, he had to take off yesterday, but we talked him into staying and showing up in Idaho late, and he left early this morning before the sun. When the rest of us woke up this morning, we made some coffee and ran Greys again. Everyone had messeges on thier phones from thier jobs (being monday morning and all) and everyone decided it would be best to head back home and back to thier jobs.

It was a great weekend with a great crew of people and the plan is to all hang out again soon. It was pretty hilarious by the end of it. 1 car, 2 trucks, my pathfinder, and a 50 ft tour bus with all the ammentities driving around the wilderness looking for campsites and whitewater. Its pretty cool how no one knew each other prior, everyone was just doing thier own thing, and somehow we all managed to meet up and have an amazing weekend. We are all going to stay in touch and with any luck go boat with each other again in the near future. Plans are already underway.