Author: Occidental

This author has written 223 articles

Dog Days of Summer, 2021 – Dry and Smoky Edition

Well, if you’ve been around these parts for a while you’ve seen previous Dog Days posts. We’ve now made it through those hot days of July and August when the constellation Sirius rises alongside the sun and happens to coincide with what has come to be my least favorite time of year. The extended days in the triple digits, the thick wildfire smoke, lack of water in streams and lakes and general drying up of the countryside might have something to do with that disdain. This year has been all time worsts for a lot of those things in my experience. We can’t plan a trip without checking to see if the destination is on fire, if we can possibly breathe the air, or if there is going to be any water to float the boat on.

Dock to nowhere
Baby it’s dry out there!
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High in the Pines, 2021

We made a trip to Delintment Lake, high in the pines in eastern Oregon. There’s not much of a report. Casts were made, fish were caught, we sat back and enjoyed what we could see of the stars through the smoke. Mainly it was just good to get away. And in rejoicing about deciding to go, instead of to stay, I was reminded of a passage from John Muir.

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Wandering the Warners, 2021

I don’t know if you have been out in the great outdoors in the past year, but if you have I’m going to bet that if you had to choose one word for your experience it would be “busy”. Yes, it’s busy out there. I can only hope with the pandemic slowing down that people will go back to whatever they were doing before it struck, instead of camping, fishing and generally crowding things up. So, with this in mind, and with Memorial Day upon us, what were we to do? Where could we go that wouldn’t be over run by the crowds? Well, I guess our answer was, as far away as possible. Luckily we found some peace and quiet. But trust me, you would never want to go there. So don’t do it. I’m serious.

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