River Day (at Wayne's World) 08/27/2012

The Rivertarians all met at Wayne's this week, in preparation for the upcoming annual Pig Roast/Labor Day weekend.  Jay, Ted, Tim, Pat, Kevin and I (Mark) all made it out for an evening of wood splitting and stacking, as well as some vehicle relocation.  The weather was great for the evening: clear skies and temps in the low 80's.

Kevin brought his wood splitter down to the camping area, and while Pat mowed the grass, the rest of us got the pile of large pine and oak logs split and stacked.  Both Wayne and Jack came down for a little while for some supervision.

After that was done, the next project of the evening was to get Wayne's old dump truck moved from the camping area to the far side of his lawn.  The truck hadn't been started for a while, so of course we never got it running.  Kevin brought his truck over, and with some chain and a tow strap, he pulled the truck to the top of the hill.  Since the truck has no brakes, he then hooked up on the other end and let the gravity take over from there.  While it looked to be an accident waiting to happen, the truck got parked where we wanted it, without incident.

Of course with all the wood splitting going on, we felt compelled to build a little fire, just to clean up the scraps.  I'm sure it was the best one...there.

Not a bad way to spend a River Day.

River Day 08/20/2012

River Day was celebrated in a new location for the the group this week.  We went up-river to the mouth of Glade Creek, then walked up to the old bridge piers, at what was once the town of Hamlet, along the New River.  Pat, Jay, Tim and I (Mark) made it out this week; work kept Ted from making it.  We had great weather when we got there, but on the way down the mountain we drove through some rain showers.  Temps stayed in the mid-70's.

We all got to the parking lot at the trail-head at about the same time, and started the hike up the trail.  I guess we never considered that we would still be affected by the big storm at the end of July, but there were a multitude of tree-falls across the path, making the walk a little tougher that anticipated, especially carrying fishing gear, tackle boxes, and of course, coolers.

Tim's 1st catch

Anyway, we found a good spot on the river and all started fishing.  Even though we could see fish jumping all over the river, Tim was the only one catching; 2 good sized small-mouth bass, and 1 smaller one.  I don't think anyone else even had a bite.  I know I didn't.

Pat decided to set a good example for young Rivertarians everywhere and decided to climb one of the bridge pylons.  He was more trusting of the hand rungs than the rest of us and successfully made it to the top, and back.

Even though the sun was a little warm on the river bank, we felt compelled to build a little fire.  Big shocker there.  We even put a nice little fire ring around it (for safety, of course).

The walk back out was quite a bit easier.  We took an alternate path that ran a little closer to the river, and the downed trees weren't nearly as bad.

I took a lot of photos this week and am posting as many of them as I can; it was a beautiful spot on the river and I couldn't decide which ones I wanted, and which to toss, so you get to enjoy lots of them this week.

Another memorable River Day!

Tim's 2nd catch!

River Day 8/13/2012

This week things were a little different than the last several as Jay and I (Tim) were the only ones able to make it down to celebrate the weekly holiday. Ted has missed the last three Mondays due to work and Mark was on vacation this week, so they're both forgiven. The weather was absolutely beautiful, the temperature were in the upper seventies and the sky was clear. We decided to go to Mill Creek this week, one of the prettiest places on the river. The water was about as low as I've ever seen it, which made fishing a little difficult. Both Jay and I spent the whole time fishing and unfortunately I can't share any pictures of the fish we caught, simply because as much as I hate to admit it... we didn't catch any! We worked the bottom of the river, the middle of the river and the top of the river as well as going up and down the bank and just came up empty handed. Only determination we could come up with was... "There just aren't any fish in this damn pond". The good news was that we had a fire this week, and yes... It was the best fire on the river. We noticed a couple down river fishing and they had a fire too, but ours was much better! All in all it was a very nice quiet Monday and as usual the best way to start the week

River Day 08/06/2012

Back to the regular spot  for River Day, and this week Pat, Jay, Tim and I (Mark) were able to make it down; Ted has worked the last two Mondays, so we haven't seen him.  The weather was overcast and muggy for most of the evening, but at least the steady rain that we'd had earlier in the day stopped before we got to the river.

Jay, Tim, and I spent most of the time fishing below the camp, while Pat braved the hike out through the rocks and grass to fish out in the main current.  Tim was the only one out of our group to catch anything, and I think that was on his first cast.  He must have disturbed the fish eating at the salad bar, because it looked like he brought up a mouthful of lettuce with him.  Pat caught a few out in front of the camp, but the fishing was less than stellar overall.

(The white speck in the center of this shot is really Pat!)

We didn't get much further with a fire this week than a couple of pieces of burned paper.  This was the first Monday in a while that we didn't fool with getting one started.  I'm sure that somewhere, someone had the best fire on the river, but for once, it wasn't us.


Not too much else going on this week.  Judy (Mom) and Ron were at the camp, but they stay to themselves when we're down when they are.  We did get the news that Leo's dog passed during the last week.  Not sure what happened, but we didn't see him out and about.  All-in-all, a very quiet evening on the river.

I didn't take many pictures this week, but I'm posting what I have.