Fishing around for the meaning of life.

  Pardon the bad pun--why yes, I have indeed been fishing, both within my mind to find the meaning in my bike-less existence, and in the outdoors trying to catch a fish or 2. I attended a women's fly fishing clinic put on by SheJumps, which was a really fun and educational experience that got me hooked and let me use my dad's nice backpacking fly rod for its intended purpose.
   So I found that fly fishing is really neat! I didn't manage to catch anything in the private lake up at Northstar, but got to hang out with some fun people and learned the basics so that I can get out there on my own. It's another complicated thing to do and the gear can be expensive, but I think I can work around that because it might be a good low impact activity for the next few months and beyond.

Learning to fly fish with SheJumps.

   Over the 4th of July weekend Kit and I took a canoe camping trip to Faucherie Lake, northwest of Truckee and a few hours up some really bumpy dirt roads, to escape the tourist mayhem in Tahoe. It seemed like an ideal combination of hip-friendly activities including paddling, swimming, fishing, and hammock lounging.
   Being able to paddle to a campsite at the far end of the fairly remote lake was another big bonus, as it allowed us to further evade the masses and have more of a "wilderness" experience. Our quiet little cove only saw a few kayakers throughout the whole 3-day weekend and muffled most of the noise from the campground partiers though it was only a 15 minute paddle from the truck.

Porky fetching sticks in our little cove.

   The only unfortunate part: we didn't catch a single fish, though we tried for hours both from shore and in the canoe. The lake's temperature was just right for swimming and the campsite had perfectly spaced trees to hang a hammock, so I made sure to take regular dips in the water to cool off and snooze a bit every day.
   Pork Chop spent the weekend mostly sleeping along with some swimming after sticks and a little bit of exploration around camp. It was a refreshing, relaxing time for all of us and a really neat experience overall. I'm totally sold on canoe camping as an easy way to get out on lakes and see neat things. I'd like to circumnavigate Lake Tahoe this fall after most of the boating crowds have gone, and find some other lakes to explore between now and then. 

Oh, the sunsets!

   The hip has been feeling intermittently more sore lately, especially after I do dumb things like walk 100 yards in knee deep water to get to where I can swim in the lake--that was a really good idea. After that incident I finally caved in and saw an orthopedic who is sending me in for MRI to look at cartilage in about a week. He is suspicious that it's a torn labrum after looking at an x-ray and the shape of the head of the femur. So the plot thickens.
   I'm feeling really apprehensive because it will be nice to know what's going on in there but at the same time it will open up a huge can of worms if it looks like something that could use surgery and I have to decide what to do about it....yuckkkkk! I have one friend who has had the surgery and it didn't work out as planned, and my cousin is currently rehabbing her hip and trying to avoid surgery. Anyhow, that's way too much speculating before I actually know what my problem is. 

   I was going to try and ride the moped over to go fishing this afternoon in the river near the house but thunder is rolling and it looks like rain. Good for the garden, but I don't really want to be caught in a torrential downpour like the one I drove through on the way home from work yesterday. Better to sit on the front porch and watch the show!