Parenting – Page 3

Illipah Reservoir – Cave Lake State Park

Leaving Cave Lake State Park driving south toward the Ward Mountain Range in the background.

Right as school let out for summer break, Denise and I received our first foster home placement. Although we were licensed since last October, we had only provided a few respite periods for another foster couple we know. This placement was the real deal, a sibling pair: a 2¹/₂ year old girl and a 14 month old boy. Ironically, we know their biological family indirectly, which creates some complications. The little girl has severe emotional disabilities, reactive attachment disorder they label it. Needless to say, this was a long, exhausting summer. I had not been fishing since Cold Springs at Wayne Kirch in early May. I had wanted to go in June before the summer heat reached its apex, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave Denise with these two children, both still in diapers and devoid of any appreciation and respect for boundaries. By the time September arrived I could not contain myself any longer, and so I planned a two-day overnight trip.

Kolob & Little Reservoirs – Southwesten Utah

A few Kolob sandstone formations on the Kolob Reservoir Road.

I had wanted to go on another fishing trip with my boys for quite a while. Although I doubted they shared my passion, I was not sure that it could not be cultivated. It had been a couple years since I took Brian and his friends to Cave Lake and Great Basin National Park, and about five years since Tom, Doug, and I went on a tour of northeastern Nevada that included the Ruby Marshes, Illipah Reservoir, Cave Lake, Silver Creek, and Great Basin National Park. Now that they were older I thought they might appreciate the experience a little more and be better able to master the technical nuances of fishing. They seemed interested in the trip (or was it just mid-summer boredom), so we planned a mid-week trip around Doug’s days off.

Great Basin National Park – Wheeler Peak

An early September snow storm dusted the Wheeler cirque on the 1993 camping trip with Doug and Tom. I sure got my money’s worth out of the 1979 Toyota Hi-Lux 4×4, as primitive as it was back then. It was one of the big reasons I decided on my 2018 Tacoma 4×4.

Before the Great Basin National Park (GBNP) came into existence in 1986 it was simply known as another National Forrest with a privately owned and operated cave complex named after the miner who discovered it, Absalom Lehman, in the mid-1880s. The park lies within the Snake Mountain Range just east of Ely, NV as it runs along the Nevada-Utah border. The U.S. Congress’ creation of the national park brought the caves into the federal fold. While I am thankful the park is protected, it is also true that such status creates a higher level of interest. Thankfully, its remoteness minimizes some of the throngs.

Mammoth Creek, Southwestern Utah

My brother, Neal, fishing Hatch Meadow in 1984.

In 1981 I left public accounting for good to start a new career with EG&G Energy Measurements. EG&G was a 40-year contractor at the Nevada Test Site, or NTS (now the Nevada National Security Site). At that time, late into the Cold War era following World War II, the primary mission of the NTS was testing the U.S. nuclear weapon stockpile as well as new weapon development, from both weapon physics and weapon effects perspectives. I envisioned this was to be a long-term career change.