Boondoggle!

Lunch in a rainstorm while waiting for the storm to blow out

We had a Cherry Lake boondoggle of epic proportions this weekend!  After our hard work on fire abatement, we decided we could squeeze in an overnighter at Cherry and try to catch some fishing at the Magic Fishing Hole.

So we packed up and headed out....right into the eye of a storm.

Playing in the rain.

As we got to the lake, everyone was pulling out...and we were heading in!  It started raining about 10 miles from the lake and got heavier and heavier as we got closer.

Hops thought - "You people are NUTS!"

We decided to give it a try and hope it blew over.

We hit heavier rain as we headed out on the lake so we found cover and hunkered down waiting for it to lift.  We hung up tarps and had a picnic lunch of cheese, crackers, hummus, pretzels, carrots and cucumbers.  While we were eating and staying dry, the Labradors played in the rain.  Ahi was zipped into my coat because there was a lot of thunder and she is NOT a fan.

The rain lightened up after an hour or so and we took a run down to the end of the lake, where the rain picked up again.  We took the opportunity to park the boat right where the creek comes into the lake and fish for blue gill.  We slayed them - a fish every cast!

When the rain lighted up a little we hiked up to the Magic Fishing hole to see if after 3 years of fire and drought, it was back in business.  When Jim caught his first trout on his first cast, I did a victory fist in the air and a little celebratory leap!  (It was not a big leap because I was on the edge of a slippery, wet cliff over the rushing creek!)

I was concerned about wobbly Daisy slipping off the cliff so I hiked down to a spot right on the water to fish.  As soon as I got down there, Ahi jumped off a log right into a log jam in the water, not realizing it was the creek underneath!

She fell in and couldn't get out because the log was too high to climb onto.  So she is struggling and panicking.  And while I am freaking out and trying to reach her without falling in myself, Hops decides to jump in and save her!  So now we have both of them stuck on the back side of a huge floating log in a rushing snow melt creek in a rain storm.  My short stubby legs needed to bridge the gap to the floating log and haul them out.   I used my mama bear strength, got to the log and pulled Ahi out by the scruff of her neck.  I threw her up on the granite bank and went back for Hops, who was now whimpering (remember, she has a bunch of babies in her belly!).  I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and pulled with all my might!  With me helping she was able to get leverage and get to the top of the floating log.

While all this was going down, Drew was running to help us and fell off a 6 foot cliff and landed on his hip!  What a disaster!  I had the biggest adrenaline rush.

Through all of this, old Daisy Mae stayed on the bank watching her two sisters get rescued and probably thinking, "dumb asses!"

After the drama, we caught 3 fish pretty quickly but had to abandon our spot when Jim saw a giant squall of rain head down the canyon towards us.

Hunkered down on the boat ride out!

We found another spot to hunker down and hung up tarps again.  After awhile when it failed to lighten up we decided to make a run for it back to the boat ramp and head back to the cabin.  So we all covered up with tarps and took off at high speed down the lake.....there was a lot of giggling as rain was hitting us in the face and I pretended to be a weather woman reporting in the eye of a hurricane!

Loading up to head home

Literally as we pulled away, the sun came out.  But - it was still pouring at the other end of the lake.  And when we got home, we learned of a weird stationary storm in the area that was causing heavy rain, hail and snow.

We made a good decision to come home.  We watched the end of the Sharks game and had tortilla soup.  All in all -- a boondoggle of epic proportions!