Sea Kitty Sherpa

I'm a new member of a group called the Trail Blazers. We're not an NBA franchise. We are an organization that transports fish to mountain lakes for the Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife. I've been given the responsibility to stock 3 lakes this year. This morning my family and I carried a backpack full of fish into one of them. We picked up fish at 10am under cloudy but clearing skies. Anza wouldn't stop glaring at the hatchery worker who was helping me transfer fish into the jug for transport. The dirt road to the trailhead was a little bumpy but our station wagon was able to inch along. We got about halfway up the road before we were stopped by a washout with some big rocks blocking the way. We got out and started to walk up the road. In about 10 minutes a family in an SUV gave us a ride to the trailhead. Once on the trail it was the usual hiking-with-2-toddler-age-kids scenario. It took us almost 2 hours to go a little over 2 miles. We had lunch at the lake before we released the fish. Mojave seemed to enjoy eating the wet lakeside duff as much as his PBJ sandwich.
I thought Anza would be interested to see the fish get released, but she couldn't have cared less. Instead she was more interested in the gray jays that were strategizing how to grab the abundant bits and pieces of Mojave’s lunch that were scattered around him. The birds tried a couple times to do their usual swoop and grab maneuver but whenever they got close to Mojave, he would let out a shriek of joy and would begin violently flailing his limbs. Kind of entertaining for the misses and I but terrifying to a gray jay. We had been hearing distant claps of thunder (forecast called for possible thunder showers). It started to rain. With the fish happily swimming among the rocks in their new home we packed up and headed home. The way down was quick and the kids slept for the drive home.