El Otoño

After a week of fishing around Michigan City, I can say one thing for certain: fall has arrived. It has arrived in all its splendidly colored, crisp-aired, wet glory. In northern Indiana, I was able to watch it arrive by steps through last week, starting the week with most everything being green and the weather only being cool in the mornings and finishing the week with temperatures solidly in the 40's through the entire day, leaves hitting yellows with tinges of orange and red, and clouds filling the sky for days at a time. Thank you, Lake Michigan. Those clouds really are a gift to the area through the entire winter. Well...

As for the fishing, I definitely did not break tradition from my previous two years and brought home one solid fish (coho salmon, 10-12 lbs or so). On the flip side, nothing helps you appreciate climate control and insulation like 4 days standing in 40-degree weather with not-quite-enough clothing for 5 or 6 (or 12) hours straight. Winter boots and coat are coming next time. I think the rain was my favorite part of the week ...well, favorite *half* of the week.

Even camping in one spot for several days straight took me back to the time on the road during the summer. There are some things that quite simply are quintessentially camp-ish... squatting as you do dishes on the ground next to the knee-height campsite faucet, never spending any real period of time indoors, having only 1 pair of shoes that you use during "activities" and 1 pair of sandals for the rest of the time/comfort around the campsite, minimal clothing options, going to bed soon after dark and getting up with or before the sun, caring very little about what time it is or how much time has passed, limited food options, having to walk some real distance just to pee and fill the water bottle, lowered sensitivity to dirt being on you and everything else, seeing a wooden picnic table as an acceptable hygenic surface on which to prepare food, having a sore back and neck, worrying less about locking things up, being more social with random people in the vicinity, carrying multiple pocket knives (need one to carry, and then one for each bag/tackle box you have with you), and no q-tips. Okay, that was a longer list than I expected. But those are just some of the things that really let you know you're camping. And then you know you're camping in the fall when you spend spare time in the evenings not just in your tent but in your sleeping bag, because it's the only item you have the truly has enough insulation for those temperatures.