Trip Summary - Bennett Spring, May 2015

If you read my last post about prepping for this trip, my brilliant plan of partying late into the night on Friday, and waking up early on Saturday worked with moderate success. For one thing, I found myself on the patio of The Royale bar at about 1:00 a.m., knowing full well I needed to wake up in two hours. The original plan was to wake up at about 3:00 a.m., quickly pack and leave, and get to Bennett Spring by about 6:30. Patrick, whose family I was staying with, ended up having to do a quick business trip to Iowa late in the week, so he was riding with me now, and I'd have to pick him up in the Grove before heading towards Lebanon.

When I finally wandered into bed at about 1:30 a.m., I was a little too exhausted to set my new phone's alarm clock. What I thought was 3:00 a.m., was actually 3:00 p.m.. Android phones used to tell you how long you have until your alarm was set to go off. Apparently that feature was too useful so they decided to scrap it. I awoke, with a shock, at 4:00 a.m. with a text from Pat, a full hour past what I was planning on. Worst of all, I still needed to pick up Patrick at 4:00 sharp. So after a few muffled curses, a quickly packed car, and a thermos full of coffee, I shot over to the Grove as quickly as I could to pick him up. All told, I was only 15 minutes behind schedule, and looking back, the extra hour of sleep was a lifesaver. Still, there was no way we were making it to Bennett fast enough to gear up and make it into the stream by opening bell. Oh well.

The drive down from Saint Louis to Lebanon, however long, is fairly pleasant. Once you get past Rolla, you can begin to appreciate the landscape of southwest Missouri - rolling hills, beautiful bluffs, lots of small streams and rivers. The weather forecast for the weekend didn't look great. There was always a threat of rain, or even thunderstorms, but on the drive down, all we had was a slight drizzle. Patrick and I spent the time waxing poetic about the jackasses we went to high school and college with, where they are now, and what they've done with their lives. Pat's been my best friend since I was six years old, and with everything like law school, careers, mortgages, weddings, wives, and dogs taking up a lot of our respective free time, it was nice to spend a long car ride and fishing trip with him and do nothing more than shoot the shit and try and catch some trout. Plus, he's getting married this time next year, and has asked me to be his best man (along with his brother, Phil, who we were meeting at the spring). Nothing quite like a three hour car ride to exhume some embarrassing speech fodder.

This pic of Pat and me isn't fishing related. We just look cool in it.