When I got into Marathon around five, I checked into my motel; the outside was a little suspicious but the room was quite neat and comfortable if a little warm. Then it was time to visit the Peninsula Golf Course, a nine hole course with several interesting holes that I have played a number of times. Since there are so few golf courses between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay, I have played them all. It was Ladies Night, but the manager told me to return at eight and he would see what he could do. I went to eat at the recommended restaurant and it was decent if uninspired. I then went to the donut shop and worked on my blog and another poem. It was now time to play golf and I was not having my best day, especially after playing so well in Wawa. My low point was an 8 on the first par 5, and I about ready to give up, but I steeled myself and decided to give the next par 5, even longer than the first, my best. My drive was over in the trees to the right but when I found the ball I had a clear low shot down the fairway so I took out my 4 iron and hit a fine shot out into the fairway. I was still a good 250 yards from the green but my next shot brought me to within 120 yards of the green. I choose my 8 iron and hit a shot that bounced right before the green and I knew it was on. When I rode up I saw that it was 4 feet away and I knocked that in for a par. The rest of my round was quite good and I broke 50 again.
In the morning I did my yoga and got a room in Thunder Bay (this allowed me not to worry about where I was staying so I could relax during the day)and then contacted Verizon to check my messages (none of which were important) and how to check them from a pay phone until my phone service returned. I also e-mailed Joey Colista and told him I would call him soon about the photos for the guide article. Productive and calming.
I knew my next big stop was to be the stream that runs through Rainbow Falls Provincial Park, one of my all-time favorites. I had a bad experience here last time, when an older couple came to fish the first big pool, even though my ex and I had gotten there first. I was furious with them since there is an iron-clad rule in fishing that you never encroach on someone’s spot, but this pair obviously didn’t care. My ex got too upset to fish but I stayed and finally caught two fish on a very tiny fly.
This time when I arrived I was a little nervous that the couple would appear but I got all my stuff on quickly and no one appeared to bother me. I started with a small Royal Wulff, and the fish splashed at it but wouldn’t take it, so remembering two years ago, I switched to a very small fly and got two small rainbows. I worked my way upstream slowly and caught three other fish, two natives and a rainbow. It was fun but I did work hard, and I decided not to try for the large pool another hundred yards up because my knee was started to hurt. On my way downstream I switched to a small nymph and caught three more rainbows. Eight fish in about two hundred yards is not bad, but I have done better here. I still wish my ex had fished it, but on that earlier trip, my reward trip for finishing five months of chemotherapy, I put her on a number of great streams and she caught many, many fish.