We had our vacation planned for a year. We were headed to Sonoma, Calif. to visit the wine country. We left on Saturday morning for San Francisco. The plane that crashed out there was in front of us. We couldn’t land. The airport was closed. We were diverted to Reno, Nev.
Before I go any further with our story, though, I want to make it clear that whatever initial hassles we had going on our vacation were nothing compared to what the crash victims suffered. Their problems go far beyond a slight vacation delay.
And, like everyone else, we’re glad it wasn’t any worse than it was. Our prayers are with all of them. It goes to show you that things can change in a minute, and in most cases you never see it coming.
So anyway, we’re in Reno, but they won’t give us our bags. We have to go to Los Angles for them. Then we find out that even when we get them we have to take an eight hour bus ride, then rent a car and drive two more hours to get where we wanted to go. That’s not our idea of a vacation.
We checked around. I mean, there has to be someplace to go in Los Angeles, right? There is. It’s called Malibu Beach. We’d never been there before, but like a lot of people, we’d heard about it. We decided to give it a try.
What a place! It really is about as pretty as it looks on TV. In a strange sort of way I have to say that things might have turned out for the better. They sure aren’t any worse. After all, our vacation was about each other, not where we went. I just wish our change of plans hadn’t been at the expense of plane crash victims. That takes some of the fun out of it.
Accidents like that make you think about life. It’s best to take advantage of whatever time you have with your loved ones. You never know when it might end, or things might radically change. The older I get the more I think about things like that.
Later today we’ll be heading to Las Vegas for ICAST. There’s been a lot of preview coverage about it, so I’m not going into any particular details here. I will say, however, that it’s the biggest tackle and equipment show in the country.
Make sure you pay attention to what’s going on out there. The sport of fishing is constantly evolving. Take advantage of that. Learn about all the new things that are coming on the market that’ll improve your fishing. I’ll give you more of the details in future columns.
The show will be over on Friday. We’ll head home, and I’ll be waiting like a kid on Christmas for the next tournament on our schedule. I have a really positive mental attitude about the rest of this year. I absolutely can’t wait to get started.