Friday Catchall: Being found makes Mom happy

The Friday Catchall:

• BEST MOTHER’S DAY – I read this week with great interest how a woman, 23, most recently living in Prescott, was found alive and safe with her dog after they were lost for a week in Montana.

Madeline Connelly and her dog, Mogi, had planned a day hike in the Great Bear Wilderness on May 4. She told KTMF-TV she realized they didn’t have any water and stopped at a swimming hole. When they got back up they took a wrong turn.

That led to a seven-day hike of about 10 miles each day. She was found Wednesday in deep woods – and offered to hike herself out!

Her mom said her daughter’s safe return was the “best Mother’s Day gift ever.”

That reminded me of my own brush with being lost in the forest.

I was about 3 and wandered away from the group camping near a beaver ponds area in Colorado. I remember “hiking” – and seeing “monsters” in the trees. Frankly, I just wanted to catch up to my brother and sister, and the other kids, but “took a wrong turn” … or three.

Apparently while I was gone, the adults noticed my absence and began to search. They also called in the Forest Service and rescuers.

At one point, my mother spotted something red floating in the nearby pond – I had been wearing a red jacket – and my dad feverishly ran, high-stepping through the water toward what ended up being a gas can.

Thankfully, a family friend found me walking down a road several miles away many hours later, near sunset – scratched up from head to toe – and gave me a piggy-back ride back to camp.

I don’t think it was near Mother’s Day, but I remind Mom of the incident from time to time and she still tears up or rolls her eyes; one emotion being thanks to God, the other saying without words that was the first of many times I kept her worried and on the edge of her seat.

Unintentionally, of course.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you.

• TURKEY – Spring brings thoughts of turkey – the “gobble, gobble” kind – when it comes to the spring hunt, something my wife and I did for the first-time ever earlier this month near the Grand Canyon.

We came home empty handed, but learned a lot and are already making plans for next year.

The trip had many good parts to it and one bad: good was the wildlife, camping and (great) time with my beloved; bad – how can sitting in a turkey blind for hours hurt as much as hiking five miles a day elk hunting?

I don’t get it.

• QUOTE – “All species capable of grasping this fact manage better in the struggle for existence than those which rely upon their own strength alone: the wolf, which hunts in a pack, has a greater chance of survival than the lion, which hunts alone.” – Christian Lous Lange

• PICKS OF THE WEEK – (Proving there’s always something good to do in the Prescott area that’s cheap or free): Prescott Valley Days is this weekend, through Sunday, in the PV Entertainment District; fun, entertainment, parade Saturday at 9, and barbecue. Or … Yarnell Daze’s 48th annual Mountaintop Festival on Saturday; parade begins at 10 a.m. on Main Street – also includes entertainment, a van and truck show, sheep shearing and more.

Your choice – you cannot lose!