If I have one quality that is both a super-power and a super-weakness, it's that I'm considered a 'nice guy'. Oh, I'm certain that there are a number of people in the world that are certain I'm a jerk, but overall it is the niceness that pigeonholes me in this society. Fortunately, I am surrounded with family members that can stand as surrogates in the event that my niceness power is useless, for example when people butt in line at the grocery store. I have my wife to make sure we don't get taken advantage of, and we have me to deal with park rangers. I have no problem admitting when I make mistakes and owning the results of those mistakes. Either I met the ranger that has the same superpower, or she felt pity on the guy that could almost park his trailer in one try. She came back smiling (again), saying that I probably thought she wasn't coming, but she did find me another space that was supposed to be used for a camphost, but they could not come, plus we could stay there as long as we wanted! I was ready to ration out the food we had, but Pam realized we had a hard deadline because of certain medicines that she took and she only had enough for a few days. We settled on 3 days and I went from dismayed to overjoyed in short order.
As soon as was possible, I had Pam stretched out in yoga attire with a good book and the air conditioner running, while I rummaged through all of my gear.
Surprisingly, with all of the stuff I had managed to pack, it still seemed like I was missing other things, like fishing tackle that one could use in very shallow backwaters. I got out my big paddleboard, and clipped enough tools on my waist to ensure that I would sink like a stone in the event I fell in, and then started arranging all of my fishing gear. I had done a lot of reading online recently and was excited about using a small Engel cooler with fishing rod holders and a special new tool that was meant to hold my paddle while I was fishing.
Apparently the no-see-ums had decided not to take a break this summer, and I was dancing around in circles to keep them from landing on my skin long enough to bite, while I gathered my gear together to go out and land the first fish...days later I would marvel at that optimism.
As it turned out, the exciting parts of the trip, were things I had not imagined, and the very first thing was the birds...I'm a Florida guy, birds are around everywhere, and water birds, while very cool, are not something I would consider exotic, but this time was different....
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