(MEMORABLE?) Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend,

This is the only picture of the weekend! I had already washed most of the mud off with a hose outside.

The weekend started with Nina ready to leave for her sisters. When she came in to say goodbye I told her I would like to go along to go fishing while she was visiting. This delayed the start for another two hours while I packed up and loaded.

When arriving in Ponca City we dropped off flowers at the cemetery then arrived at her sisters. Nephews were there so had a good visit. Next morning I left early to go fishing, stopped by Bill (my brother) along the way but he didn't answer the door so on to the river.

Now my adventure begins;

I arrived at Wolf Creek and proceeded to drive down the old road which was more of a deep rutted trail through the woods. As I proceeded I came upon a Very DEEP rutted mud hole with no way around. Of course I got stuck so spent the morning trying to get out. At the end of that ordeal I was wet, muddy, and a bit tired to say nothing of my attitude at having not put a hook in the water. It was back to Nina’s sister to clean up and wash the van on the way. That afternoon I called Bill and ask if he wanted to go with me to put flowers on family sites at the Newkirk cemetery and then explore for a fishing spot. As I was loading the flowers I dropped one and had to repot it. That was not a good sign that the afternoon would go any better than the morning. Well, Bill showed up to go along and our exploring ended with a flat tire we had to change in the dark. The next day was Sunday but the flat had to get fixed, which I didn’t much like but the ox was in the mire. Monday was not much better however I did get a hook in the water and I caught a good sized bass. Now usually I would put the fish into a wire basket but I didn’t, I put the bass on a stringer and into the water. It wasn’t long after that noticed a large (14 to 16 inch diameter) snapping turtle was looking at me out of the water next to the bank where my stringer was. Yep, he got the bass. Now I could bore you with details about getting hung up and losing several spinners, hooks, floats etc.; but that all goes with fishing and is tolerable when you catch fish. So now it is getting on to about noon and Bill arrives which was a good thing. You see the creek bank was very steep and as the water was receding the bank was wet and slippery. It wasn’t long after Bill got there I found myself in the creek. I couldn’t get out on my own because of the wet slippery slope and Bill had to give me a hand up. By the end of that day’s fiascos I still had no fish and was once again wet and muddy. Ok, I give up, time to end this and head back home. I dropped back by the cemetery and picked up the flowers I had dropped off the day of the flat. Next I Picked up Nina, then the flowers at the other cemetery and headed for home. When I picked up Nina she was not doing well and had a sore throat the whole time with laryngitis so the visit with her sister did not go as well as she had wanted.  

I have an unwavering hope that the next fishing trip will be more productive with fish and less productive with accidents. We did come home to a productive garden with lots of cherry tomatoes. It was a very MEMORABLE weekend, though I would like to forget it.