Luckiest Person I Know

I used to always say I was the luckiest person I knew. Think Wes, most trips to Montreal, chasing the thief in in Pamplona, working on the F/V Alexander Gabriel, extended trips in the Southern Hemisphere, fully funded road trips... (I actually am sort of spacing here maybe some readers can remind me.) For the longest time I really was lucky. And then I sort of lost it.

But. I am back. This week I was accepted to grad school which was surprisingly amazing. Yes, people had told me don't worry you will get in but, seriously, I had my doubts. It is an incredible feeling to get in, I mean I am only getting a degree in general studies, I can't imagine what it feels like to be accepted to law, medical, or phd school. Unreal.

But that is not really why I am lucky. I am lucky because my office is across the hall from Fish and Wildlife.

Now, most of convos have been with Fos (so funny when grown men continue to use teenage nicknames throughout life) a middle aged Lakeview lifer, he has a few kids, curses like a sailor, and a huge handlebar/walrus mustache. He was the one who told me this fall I didn't need a concealed weapons permit to enjoy the backcountry in Oregon. He told me all about cougars: they are ambush predators (most likely I won't see them until its too late), they scratch trees, each male has a 100 mile radius of land, and that they hunt for a specific search image (spine parallel to the ground, humans are perpendicular) and only really worry about them if I am biking. He also told me how to get out of a bad situation: look the cougar in the eye, make myself large with hiking poles, don't bend over to get my camera out of my backpack, and back away slowly. He also advised that if I was attacked to "fight like hell." He also showed me a dead cougar a few weeks ago in some rancher's pick-up. It was messing with the guy's cows. The cougar was huge.

Its also trapping season, so over the past few weeks I've seen the pelts of countless bobcats. Which I can tell you are a lot less scary then cougars. Each person can trap up to 5 bobcats. And these people sell them to European designers for upwards of $500 each. I asked one of these dudes who would win a fight a bobcat or a cougar and he just looked at me like I was crazy.

And fast forward to today. My new fishing buddy, George Collins (68 retired), called me about fishing. So I went across the hall and introduced myself to the Fish Specialist, Sharon, and asked about good fishing these days. She was so stoked just to talk to a woman that she gave directions to hot spring feed rivers where the fish are huge and biting. I guess they don't give out too much info like that... And a map and a website where I can buy flies for 55 cents. Dream. So basically, I can take breaks from work, talk fishing and hopefully (fingers crossed) catch big ones in my leisure time.

This all makes me very happy.