Opt Outside

Have a safe journey home little buddy

The last few years REI has been closed  on Black Friday. Instead of crazy deals to lure in customers, they do not open up. Best of all, they pay the employees anyway. They do this as their Opt Outside initiative. The plan is to get the employees (who are mostly adventurers anyway) to go do something outdoors. I think this is a pretty cool thing for a big company to do. Especially considering Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year. The original plan was to get a million people to follow suit. Instead of shopping, the hope was they would also go outside.

Since I have Fridays off from work anyway, I usually plan to be outside on Black Friday. I won't pretend I didn't make a quick run to Bass Pro Shops to buy a reel and a fleece. But that was well after the early bird shoppers were back in bed. After going to BPS, I went fishing.

On Thanksgiving, I went for a hike at Parker Woodlands in Coventry, RI. I planned on doing all seven miles of trail. However, Laurie wanted to come over after eating dinner with her family. I cut my hike down to four miles so I could be home when Laurie came over. I was rewarded with hot chocolate, a turkey plate (turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing) and a piece of apple pie. Didn't I say she was a great friend!

Hickory Shad

So today, I went fishing. I think this will be my last hurrah for migrating stripers. I wanted one more chance to catch them before they all head down south. I went to one of the South County beaches. There were about seven other guys fishing when I got there. I fished for two hours and landed six schoolies and one shad. I saw quite a few others caught. Two guys that I know got a combined twenty. These were all smaller fish. The biggest I caught was twenty inches. Still it beat sitting home.

The temp was in the high forties and the sun was bright. The light breeze was coming over my right shoulder so it was fairly comfortable out. After dark I tried a tidal river for a few minutes. Although I didn't get any in my twenty minutes, I did see a couple caught.

All in all going fishing sure as hell beat fighting traffic, crowds, and long lines.
Opt Outside! 

I couldn't tell if this logjam was man made, an act of god
or the work of a beaver at Parker Woodlands.