Breaking Out
When Going Against the Prevailing Wind Becomes Imperative







Marcia McGreevy Lewis

 
© Copyright 2023 byMarcia McGreevy Lewis



 Photo property of the author.
Photo property  of the author..

We were a little stir-crazy as the pandemic loosened its grip. It had been one long haul! While locked down, my boyfriend and I had amused ourselves by taking walks where we marveled at the pots of cherry red geraniums, sprightly yellow daisies and plum-purple pansies. We’d gone on so many walks that we started hunting for diversion in hidden street ends, remote places, even alleyways. We binged on TV series and played card games, but that lost its luster. Cooking was repetitive, so we ordered out too much.

I’m the last person who should complain. I have a loving relationship, close family and friends and food on the table. I gathered through Facetime with distanced family and through Zoom with the groups with whom I used to gather in person. I met with a few friends who were comfortable taking walks.

The virus had claimed over six million people worldwide. It snaked into all our families. For over two years, we coped, but my beau’s patience was at a breaking point. That’s when I witnessed a minor explosion. My guy got so steamed up while watching the TV news one night that he jumped up from the couch, grabbed the vacuum and started cleaning rugs at mach speed. It became crystal clear that we needed to let off steam, so we planned a road trip because we couldn’t travel far. It turned out that adventure was as close as our parked car.

“You don’t know until you go,” said my partner as he and I headed across the Cascade Mountains for a day of fly fishing on the upper Yakima River in Washington State. It took either intrepid fly fishermen or delusional ones to find themselves in a drift boat on that day. Hot, dry weather had sent fires raging on both sides of the Cascades. We hesitated, almost canceled, and felt anxious about going. The fire near Ellensburg, Washington, was beginning to diminish, so we took a chance and shot off to Cle Elum, near Ellensburg.

On the drive from Seattle to Cle Elum, we left the pine trees on Snoqualmie Pass behind. Chunks of amber covered the hillsides where trees were starting to dress in their fall finery. It was a peak time to be in the mountains as maples, alders and cottonwoods showcased their cherry red, lemon yellow and lime green leaves.

Arrival in Cle Elum offered a stark contrast to the serene drive. I knew fires were devastating immense regions of Washington and Oregon, but right before us was one of those regions. The smell harkened back to camping around a roaring fire. Though the flames were miles away, there was such limited visibility that the post-apocalyptic landscape looked like I was viewing it through a mosquito net. An ominous leaden haze converged with empty sidewalks, and it was disconcertingly quiet. No birds chirped and no children raced their bikes down the street. There were few cars, no hearty walkers, nobody hailed anyone with a raised hand, nobody. Nobody. The smoky blue-grey sky didn’t portend well for fishing either.

Turn back? Despite the improbability of casting a rod over the river, turning back was not a viable option for a seasoned fisherman in search of the wily cutthroat. My boyfriend (the seasoned one) and I (the unseasoned one) decided to stay and check the wind in the morning.

Since fishing was unlikely for the day we arrived, we opted to explore the Teanaway Valley near Cle Elum. Though the dusty, coppery air enabled visibility for a mere few feet, I could see over the ridge to buffalo roaming near the Teanaway River. Buffalo farms exist there because the Wild West has come to enjoy juicy, tender buffalo burgers. The Teanaway, a Yakima River tributary, was a shadow of its former self this late in the summer. The river beds were almost as dry as the abundant stacks of hay for sale.

I explored the town of Cle Elum too in hopes that it would afford better visibility than the valley. It certainly afforded amusement when we observed the storefront of Chew-n-Butts vying for novelty with Three Forks Ammo and Reloading. Whose butts are going to be chewed and what is going to be reloaded? Locals must have an affinity for their favorite chews and apparently don’t mind ashtrays full of butts. They also obviously needed to be reloaded—or maybe their shotgun shells did. I didn’t need to be clear on all this. I only needed to enjoy how it set the Western town scene--perfectly.

Animal clinics were almost as plentiful as marijuana stores, and The Lodge Motel reader board displayed one word: “We.” I’m guessing the sign person got distracted. We what? We lodge people? So does the motel where we stayed. I'm not exaggerating when I call it the motel of dead plants and fake flowers. The plants were as dry as a cowhand fresh off a day of rounding up cattle. Next time I’m staying in a live-plant motel and if I’m lucky, it’ll sport fresh flowers.

The food was good in Cle Elum. The Sunset Café sources its products locally and serves copious portions of fried chicken, sausages and steaks. The Cottage Café provides the quirky option of pull tabs so diners can pull while they eat. Just don’t count on a breakfast buffet at the dead plant motel. There are pre-packaged pastries and mushy apples that I neglected to mention for good reason.

One street back from the main drag are small frame houses with perky yellow sunflowers stretching to the rooftops. That endeared me to the town and convinced us to stay and give the weather a chance the next day. As sunset approached, the neon orange coin went down, peering through a grey velvet curtain of smoke.

Overnight the easterly winds pushed the smoke into the Seattle area so that luminous sunlight woke up the horizon and put a smile on my face. “If the smoke was like it was last night, we couldn’t have gone,” said our guide from Troutwater Fly Shop in Cle Elum. With mid-70s weather and variable winds of about 5-15 mph, the biggest challenge was to keep the sunshine from our eyes. Let’s go fishing!

Our guide “runs and guns” because there was a lot of “the Yak” to cover in a short time. The goal for the day was to get more fish than ash into the drift boat. There was little doubt that my companion would accomplish that goal, just as there was little doubt I would undermine it. My companion is a very patient coach, and our guide proved to be as well, so I did end up landing a few scrawny rainbows. I'll take scrawny.

There was an ample supply of small bugs cavorting on the surface of the water. They'd hatched their eggs on the bottom of the river and were unaware of how alluring they were to the trout. Translucent blue dragonflies, stout geese, menacing turkey vultures and substantial osprey streaked by in the sapphire sky. Honeycombed nests of swallows resembled oversized barnacles on the cliffs. Beavers built massive homes where the river braids, and wild turkeys roamed the banks. River otters invaded the best fishing spot. Of course they did. We gave it to them.

Cottonwoods dominated the riverbanks. Windswept Ponderosa pines climbed the hillsides, their tops pointing downriver in compliance with the southeast wind. Scrub oaks popped up in places like the deserted dairy farm on the Stuart Anderson Ranch where we stopped for lunch. The John Wayne Trail loops through the ranch that was awash in grasshoppers. Wild aster with cobalt blue petals and brilliant yellow centers shared the stage with the button-like flowers of the lanky yellow tansy. Delicate white flowers peppered the diminutive elderberry bushes.

I couldn’t get enough of the water-etched rocks, ebbed by the waves that formed them. Driftwood stacked in massive piles against the upriver sides of boulders. Stunning lime green, mustard yellow and rust-colored patches of lichen enlivened the stark brown and grey basalt cliffs.

Railroad tracks paralleled the river, and both streamed by Highway 10. It was the original road from Seattle to Chicago before Highway 90 bypassed towns like Cle Elum, leaving now-deserted fuel stations and coach stops. Former bustling economies withered as progress flashed by.

Wind farms, responding to the ebb and flow of the breeze, dotted the high banks. The spindly arms of the wind turbines appeared to be skulking like daddy long leg spiders over the crests of hills. It was hard to concentrate on “Cast upstream, mend, point the rod tip, follow the foam, and be ready to set” when the scenery was so captivating. That’s why I was happy with scrawny. My casts were imperfect and many trout nibbled before I set. I blamed the wind.

The most frequently asked question of our guide after how deep the water was (1 ft. to 10 ft., but people measure it in cubic feet per second) and what class of water this was (class 1 out of 6 classes), was how to make it back to the vehicle. Of course he had the shuttle service arranged. We thanked him for the scenic and successful river float, and my fly fisherman reserved space on Troutwater’s upcoming calendar.

There did turn out to be more fish than ash in the boat. It witnessed about 25 cutthroats and rainbows coming aboard. With an average length from 14-19 inches, this bounty might indicate that we were perhaps more intrepid than delusional after all.



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