And Now You Know

     Paul Harvey used to have his afternoon news reports broadcast over the radio.  I remember listening to them.  In particular is the memory of standing at my Grand-dad’s workbench, in the tack room of the barn, up at their farm on Lansing Avenue.  I don’t recall what we’d been working on; probably sharpening some tool so that we could cut something down after lunch.  I do remember the radio being on, and listening to the news or the story of someone whose name wouldn’t be revealed until the very end, when he would say, “And now you know the rest of the story.  This is Paul Harvey.  Good day!”

     Being six days out from having been socked with sixteen inches of snow for our first snowfall of the year, I reflected back on a few trout fishing trips that I didn’t write about in my blog this season. 

In the midst of the Storm

     The first was from a father/son trip to Marquette County, in Wisconsin, back on Thursday, July 2^nd.  I actually did write about that trip, but due to the loss of the school’s camera I had used on the trip, I didn’t have all of the pictures and videos documenting it.  (Past Entry: "Thanks for Nothing")  This fall, while teaching, I suddenly got an email at school.  It was from a man living just across the Stateline in Beloit.  After a series of emails back and forth, he returned our camera that he had found on the ground after my family had left the 4^th of July fireworks show.  Apparently I had left it next to where we were sitting.  After using the camera this fall to take pictures of his daughter at her school’s homecoming, he went to download the pictures, and saw my last name printed on the memory card.  When he did a search of my name, up popped my email and the contact was made.  It was a miracle to get it back, and now you know the rest of that story…

Sunrise on the Way to Adventure

Thirteen Inch Brown Trout

White Pine

           

Tamarack

Sugar Maple

British Soldier Lichen

Bankside Wildflowers

Currents on the Water

Reflections

Ripple in the Shallows

Finishing the Day

Sunset on the Way Home

     The second undocumented trip came in the late afternoon of Tuesday, August 25^th.  It was at a secret creek that I was able to get to; an hour or so before the sun set.  In the beginning I saw three really big browns in the same run.  None hit solid, but more or less played with their “food” (my spinner).  I finally managed to hook an 8” brown that I quickly released.  Later I caught a 17” brown.  I took a picture and then released this one also, after working to get it back into the water and feeling good about its revival.  Within the next couple of feet I caught two 10” browns that I decided to keep.  At the next big bend, my turn around point, I pitched up under some over hanging grass on the far bank.  Immediately there was a wake and surge, and I had a thick 18” brown on the line.  It jumped several times and was a load to bring up and into my hand.  Due to the fight and the size of the trout, I didn’t take any pictures but elected to perform a quick release.  It was a fun trout to catch and hold briefly due to its size and spunk.  Typically when I turn around in a creek, “that’s that”, and I’m finished.  This time I worked my way back to the run I started at just an hour before.  Within a cast or two I hooked into a beautiful 16” brown.  I ended up having to keep that one as I couldn’t get the hook out very well.  In fact, while trying to, I actually ended up breaking off one of the barbs on my spinner.  With the time and stress on the fish to do this, I didn’t feel right releasing it. This still wasn’t one of the big browns I had originally seen in that run, as one of those jumped at a fly while I was working on the 16 incher, and sounded like someone was chucking firewood into the creek.  It was a lot of action in a short amount of time, and now you know the rest of that story…

     The third of my unwritten summer trips came on a tributary of the Sugar River on Sunday, August 30^th.  We had had a lot of rain the previous day or so, but I felt like I’d still be able to hit some potentially deep bends, and possibly wrestle some big browns out as the autumn spawn was quickly approaching.  The wading, as it turned out, was difficult and deeper that I’d expected.  I spent more time hiking in and out of the river, or walking past sections that would have been above my waders, than actually fishing.  When I did have an opportunity to get in and start pitching my spinner ahead to dark pools and grassy overhangs, my pole busted.  This was the second pole I’d broken this year (this one right at the sleeve joint).  Either it’s the cheaper poles, or catching bigger fish periodically on these ultra lights; or just plain bad luck.  It happened on a light snag.  When I lifted my pole it simply bent in half as the fiberglass tubing gave away.  Luckily the sunset was beautiful.  It was a lot of work with not a lot of payoff, and now you know the rest of that story…

     My next unwritten outing came on Monday, September 7^th; the morning of Labor Day.  I fished my “Home Creek” for two hours and only caught a few chubs, and saw one massive snapping turtle, before I finally managed to catch and release my first little brown trout.  (Past Entry: "Home" Waters)  Soon after that first catch I did have one decent hit, but I didn’t set the hook well and I lost him.  I decided to back out and have my morning lunch on a log that had once fallen across the creek.  When I had eaten and rested a spell, I worked my way back to where I had just missed the brown trout.  By the time I’d had my fifth cast, I had him back on.  It measured at 14 ½ inches.  I quickly released him after a picture; the least I could do for stalking him.  It ended in that way, as a good morning, and now you know the rest of that story…

     
     The last of my unwritten outings came as an end of the season run, with my Dad, on a creek we’ve had marginal success on, but always feel as though it has potential.  It’s not too far from the Kettle Moraine State Forest.  We went on Tuesday, September 29^th following a day of teaching.  We listened to each other, made an attempt at casting, but probably spent more time simply catching up and letting each other talk, than concentrating on what we were doing.  Apparently the trout realized it and took the night off too.  We did not see or catch any sight of one the entire night.  The evening was beautiful, however, and so we fished and talked until dark.  We even found a different section we could fish in the future, and shared some of our knowledge with a young man who also was fishing that same creek as part of his end of the season run.  Sometimes the season isn’t about the fish, and now you know the rest of that story…

                 
     Five unwritten trips.  Five trips previously undocumented.  Five trips with all of the highs, lows and mundaneness of trout fishing.  It makes the season what it is, and now you know the rest of the story. 

     Happy Thanksgiving; and we do have much to be thankful for! 

See you along The Way…

Downright Spooky

            We awoke to darkness as we had to get our daughter to the high school by 6:15 a.m.  She was traveling with her cross country team to cheer on the teammates competing in the State Sectionals.  As it slowly grew light outside, it revealed gloom, cold air, and drizzle.  It was going to be one of those days.  Not a bad day, just one of those days to get some chores done.  It started with cleaning up dog poop from the backyard, taking down the fencing around the garden, and then taking out the stakes and wire baskets that marked which vegetables were which; in addition to holding up the cherry tomato plants.  As the drizzle increased, I moved inside and cleaned off the dust that had built up on the fans in our bedrooms after a summer of use.  I was inside until the drizzle increased to a steady rain that was building up in our eavestroughs.  Those of you who own houses near mature trees know what came next.  Once in a blue moon you clean the troughs of the leaves when it’s warm and beautiful out.  The other forty-eleven times it is closer to what it was today; cold rain, soaked clothes, cold water, wet leaves and a slippery ladder.  In the end, the down spouts were cleared and the water released out into the yard.  I hooked up the hose to our rain barrel and ran it out to the arbor vitae bushes.  They like the extra water.  I like to think that when they receive the extra water, the bushes pretend they’re like their white cedar cousins, in some swamp up North, where the waters of some head-water stream are bubbling up out of the ground.  It was about then that the flocks of geese flew overhead, bucking the head wind and heading south.

            I threw some potatoes and eggs into my iron skillet for brunch, and finished cooking it up just before my son came home for a quick visit from college.  We split the meal, ate, and talked. 

Some of my cousins texted back and forth about life stuff; funny life stuff, and then I went and picked up my daughter when she and her team came back from the race.  I trimmed both of our dogs’ nails and then brushed them out in the garage.  Those were the necessary tasks before tackling the vacuuming; otherwise the shed dog hair quickly replaces what you clean up.  After a brief run over to school, to get some stuff to help prepare lesson plans, I stopped by and saw a neighbor who was out getting ready for Halloween.  He also works at school.  We talked about cabins, fish, family, students and birthday presents.  Soon kids were walking the neighborhood, so I got home to help pass out candy to “trick-or-treaters.”  I’ll admit that it’s fun to see past and present students.  For dinner I had a baked pasty, made from a real, live “Yooper” (person from Michigan’s UP - Upper Peninsula) that lives and has a restaurant down here in Roscoe, Illinois. 

The pasty was a part of a gift given to me by a student back at the beginning of the school year.  It was then that I started the fire in the fireplace.  It was perfect for today; a perfect way to end the day.

            It was a perfect way to end the day except it was bitter sweet.  It was bitter sweet because I was burning some of the last of the green ash tree that used to stand in our backyard next to the house and next to our patio.  True, it added to the leaves that built up in our gutters, but even more, it provided shade for a good six months of the year.  It was a great tree, that even in the few years we have lived here; I had been trimming into a shapely tree that centered between the house, the patio, and the neighboring spruce tree.

The year we bought the house-Ash Tree next to our home

            Enter an invasive species; the emerald ash borer.  It was first identified in North America in 2002 but it most likely was here in the early 1990’s; having come over from eastern Asia.  The guess is that it came over within the wooden boards used for crates, or the wooden braces used to stabilize the cargo on ships hauling freight.  The emerald ash borer is a metallic-green colored insect that during its larvae stage, chews through the live part of the tree between the outer bark and inner cork.  After a while the tree has so many holes in it, that it can’t send its life-blood sap up and down through the vascular tubes in its trunk and branches.  It’s a sad sight to witness, as the tree fights to live by sending out shoots and runners from areas that are still “alive.”  But the fate of the ash tree is inevitable.  Its devastation is downright spooky.  In addition to the tree that used to stand in our backyard, whole sections of forests in many states are now dead, with only the bare, branched arms left standing and lifted skyward.  Streets that were once lined with beautiful, old, American elm trees; trees that formed tunnels alongside houses with front porches in many neighborhoods in towns across America, became barren due to the destruction of Dutch Elm Disease that hit North America in the 1970’s and 80’s.  Most cities replaced the elm trees with the green ash tree.  Now those same streets are bare again, and it makes you wonder what’s next.  It honestly scares me when I think of other species of trees that I enjoy.  What will happen to them?  It’s like the “Dumbing Down of the World” when things destroy other things in areas where there is no natural checks and balances.  Ax handles and tool handles are just some of the items made from the ash tree; by-products of a shapely tree that’s been an important part of North America’s forests and a resource for development.

            The ash tree that died in our backyard came down this spring.  I wanted it gone before my son’s high school graduation open house.  I cut it down and cut up the main trunk and branches.  I burned up the smaller branches left behind.  The wood up to six inches thick, I stacked for firewood.  The ashes from the small branches, I sprinkled into the woods to share its nutrients with other trees and plants.  The larger chunks left from its trunk I will split this winter when the air is cold and crisp.  Ash is straight grained; it will pop and snap and split under the direction of an ax and wedge and mall.

Cut down & up over one weekend.

Before being cut down.

           

Cut & Stacked-A fire burns the twigs.

Burning branches put to good use.

We’ve already burned some of the ash this summer, to cook brats and roast marshmallows out in our fire-pit.  We’ve burned the ash wood during family fires and fires with friends.  Today is the first time I’ve burned its wood in our fireplace.  The wood from this tree will last throughout the winter.  Burning in our fireplace will be its final tribute, to a worthy life cut tragically short from an unwelcome insect wrecking havoc at a spooky rate across North America.  It is, however, literally going down in a blaze of glory.

            After a day of chores that allowed me to complete tasks, tonight is an opportunity to sit, relax and reflect.  Tonight our old green ash tree is providing me with warmth while I write.  It’s time to add another log onto the dying embers to keep the fire alive.

See you along The Way…

“I have been told some people have fireplaces but never start fires in them because they might leave a residue of soot on the firebricks or otherwise smudge the cleanliness of a room.  Each to his own, but for me, a fireplace without a fire is like a house without people.  Just as it takes warm beating hearts to make a house a home, so it takes flames to make a fireplace.”

-Mel Ellis (Notes from Little Lakes)

Tired dogs soaking up the heat.

C.F.A.

“When in doubt, head for water.”  -  John Jerome (Blue Rooms)

            A few Monday’s ago we had the day off from school; Columbus Day.  I’ll admit, it’s a nice three day weekend on the eve of autumn, but I truly wish it was to honor someone else.  Leif Erikson came to the “New Land” of North America as a Viking, before Christopher Columbus, to the Newfoundland area in what is now Canada.  That was around the year 1000 AD.  It was 500 years later that the Italian Columbus, sponsored by Spain, arrived in what is now known as the Caribbean Islands.  Perhaps it’s because Columbus had ulterior motives.  Perhaps it’s because he established slavery on his second journey, to force the natives to dig for the gold he hoped for.  Regardless, it makes me a bit uncomfortable celebrating someone who represents such things.  It just seems weird that we ignore the tens of millions of Native People that lived here, prior to Europe’s push for colonization, to celebrate this guy.  I’m not taking away from his adventuresome spirit.  Heading off into what seemed like an endless sea had to be a bit spooky.  It proves, I suppose, that he was brave, if not power hungry, and allows you to at least find something positive in his persona.  It doesn’t, however, mean that we should have a day off from school to honor him.  While it is refreshing to have the extra day, I’m with the growing number of communities who are now using the day to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day.  I’d feel a lot more comfortable heralding the lives and efforts of the many tribes nationwide who have fought the struggle to survive; many against what you can only describe as insurmountable odds.  While speaking with an Ojibwe educator when I was working on my master’s degree, he noted that within schools, we should first talk about how First Nation people live and work in today’s world before we teach how they lived in the past.  It gives students a correct, modern perspective, instead of thinking they continue to all live in wigwams or teepees and hunt bison for food with a bow.  It would allow classes to discuss the advancements and struggles of various native tribes and avoid stating, without refute, that Columbus was First to the Americas (CFA).

Homework Page for the Week at School

            Still, I made use of the day off by rallying and gathering some of the members of the “Gulo Adventure Clan”; men tied either past or present to our school, to head out for a morning adventure on the Sugar River.  We met early in the morning, threw our supplies and gear into two vehicles, the kayaks/canoe on to a trailer, and then headed out.  By 9:00 we had dropped off our equipment and transferred our vehicles for take-out before getting on the water.  It was cool, overcast, and a little breezy.  After paddling for a half hour or so, it sprinkled for a few moments.  From that point on it slowly cleared bit by bit as the day progressed.  With that, the temperature rose and the winds increased.  It was the CFA we had anticipated (Clear Forecast Arrival).

            After an hour, we pulled up onto a sandbar.  While supplies were unloaded, and small twigs were gathered as fire tinder, we broke out sling shots.  The targets were various logs, sticks, and stumps.  We used smooth, round stones I had collected in a small tub.  There is something primordial about pulling back on a slingshot and notching your fingers against your cheek while taking aim through the forks.  After a release, especially when you’ve hit the intended target, it’s hard not to smile a boyish grin.  I grew up with a pocket full of rocks and a “Wrist-Rocket” slingshot, so I knew what the others were feeling.  In that brief moment of time they were all CFA’s (Country-Boys flinging ammunition) like David slaying Goliath.

            While the others were busy defending the universe, I busted out the flint and steel and got a fire going.  Soon after, we had potatoes and sausage cooking, and then eventually added the eggs and cheese.  I love cooking over an open fire, especially for others.  It’s a combination of the preparation, making the fire, smelling the smoke and food, and then listening to the activity surrounding it all. 

Eating the food afterwards is the fringe benefit.  We cleaned up, repacked our supplies, and loaded our tub into the bottom of the canoe.  We had work to do in the form of paddling, and now we had the nourishment to do it.  We had taken the time to Cook to Form an Alliance (CFA).

            We continued down river and enjoyed a great morning of talking and soaking up the river’s beauty.  Rivers, like this, have been used as a way to travel within this country for a long, long time.  By the time we paddled around the last few bends, we found ourselves battling small white-caps pushing upriver, against the current, by the wind.  It was windy now but at least it was warm.  

Deep down you felt the need to enjoy the moment, as such days are dwindling while winter begins to loom.  We made good time by using the CFA to our advantage (Currents For Advancement).  The moving water of a river can do that.  We landed at our destination by 1:00; a perfect amount of time that still allowed us to do other things that afternoon.

            All of us in the group are tied to our local schools in some way.  We are experiencing the educational winds of change, and the growing pains that come with it.  While rocking it out teaching, we are also evaluating our curriculum, tying this to state/national standards, developing Common Formative Assessments (CFA’s) while integrating this into our teacher evaluations.  I’m still learning what that means.  I’m still wrestling with what I have to do, get to do, need to do and want to do with all of the new information that comes while teaching every day.  In the meantime, and in order to put one foot in front of the other, I seem to require periodic chunks of time where I can escape.  I use these times to recharge, take a deep breath, put things into perspective, grapple with them, prioritize, sometimes compartmentalize them, and then forge ahead in one way or another.  In the meantime, I thank my God that I can gather with friends, paddle a kayak or canoe, and Cruise For Adventure (CFA) on a liquid trail.

            See you along The Way...

Final Score:16 to 4-A Win Win Situation

     Coming off a week where my fifth grade team of teachers prepared for and held our annual "Creek Walk Day," I hadn't slept much.  The carrot in front of me, however, was an end of the season, trout fishing run to one of my favorite creeks north of here on the following day.  Not that I needed much of a carrot, since I really do love our day teaching outside, down along the creek, near our school.  Looking back, teaching by the creek was probably more like a booster rocket propelling me upwards and outwards to a space of water that few have a desire to tread.  I awoke at 5:00 and was on the road by 5:20.  Although stretches were thick with fog, I reached my destination by 6:20.  I smiled to myself at the humor behind that.  One hour.  As a math and science guy, I love the intricacies of numbers.

     I got my stuff ready, put my waders on, and started to hike in.  It was still fairly dark and the morning was supposed to start with cloud cover, but there was enough to see without the use of my headlamp.  Along the way I passed a marshy area surrounded by cattails.  It was alive with the sounds of a familiar friend of small creeks I've fished before.  The brilliantly marked wood duck, in the form of a large flock, was getting edgy and preparing to alight for the day's journey south to some unknown destination.  I guessed at over a hundred of them.  

I had heard them when I had first gotten out of my Jeep and now I was right beside the shallow pond; unbeknownst to them.  I decided to video tape them, to capture some of what I was witnessing.  I'm not going to lie.  It turned out pretty cool.  After several squadrons took off, I continued down the lane, through the field, prepped my pole, and entered the water. 

I immediately realized that I had incorrectly guessed where some of the holes were in my waders the night before; when I had applied some neoprene patch.  I could feel a cold trickle in my left boot.  

     No matter, I made my way around a few bends and finally caught a 9 and a half inch brown trout.  I quickly unhooked it and released it.  After that, it was "slim pickin's" for quite a while, as they say, until I had fished for well over an hour.  Slowly, the tide turned then and I started catching fish.  At the same time, the sun began to appear intermittently between the clouds.  Over a decent stretch I caught sixteen total brook trout.  I loved looking at their beautiful colors and markings.  I had thought of keeping a few if I had caught any around ten inches but all of them were in the eight to nine inch range.  I released them all back into the creek from whence they came.  I finally did stop long enough to take a picture of one of them.

 In one hole alone I caught about five or six brook trout.  It was really fun.  There is nothing quite like a little action from a native fish to keep you going.

     Soon after that, a brown trout just shy of fifteen inches, shot out from under the bank at my spinner.  I was suddenly busy with my ultra light pole bent over, as I stood in a knee deep bend of the creek.  I decided to keep this one fish and save it for a meal back home later this fall.  It's always entertaining to have a big brown explode out from under a bank when you least expect it; especially in the bright light. 

Typically they hang tight until the darkness between dusk and dawn, but occasionally they surprise you, and after catching the lovely little brookies, it can be downright shocking to see a torpedo of yellowish-brown come shooting out at your lure.  Humorously I caught two more browns after that on the next couple of bends.  Both were small in size and released.  The first of those two was so small, in fact, that I actually measured it.  It was four inches long.  The humor was that it hit a number two Mepps.  The lure was almost as long as it was.  It's a testament to the feistiness of these fish.

     Finally I stopped and decided it had been enough.  It was close to noon, so I sat on the bank and had my lunch of a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich, on rye bread, with a side of raisins and corn chips.  I washed it down with some water and started hiking out.

     I eventually hit the remnant of a path, not much bigger than an old deer trail.  It ran through a small grove of poplar trees.  As I said in the beginning, I had been tired coming into today, and with the drive home coming up, I knew what would happen.  I'd get sleepy and struggle to keep my eyes open on hilly, curvy, country roads.  Today, luckily enough, I had thrown in my net-like hammock.  

I decided to string it up and watch the clouds go by while listening to the sand hill cranes in the field off in the distance and a flock of blue jays in the trees nearby.  I took several pictures to try to capture the moment, and then a video of the wind in the poplar leaves above me, before nodding off.  

I only slept about fifteen minutes but it was just enough time to take the edge off and allow the water to drain down the leg of my waders and soak into my shorts.

     As I hiked the last of the way out to my Jeep, I took a picture of the autumn air hanging over the prairie, and a video to capture the sound of the crickets in the mid-day heat.  What a great way to wrap up the final days of Wisconsin's Trout Season.

See you along The Way...

End of Summer Outings

    

Lake of the Clouds in the Porcupine Mountains, Michigan - 2006

Jodi - 2004

     When our kids were little and we took them on our family camping trip, the week or so before school started, we experienced some great adventures together.  They were the kind of adventures that produced fond memories and monumental photo albums.  Ask me about them sometime.  I can easily sit down and go through the pictures with you; with the same amount of enthusiasm that my sisters and I expressed on evenings when Mom and Dad pulled out, and set up, either our slide projector or 8 mm reel to reel movie projector. Contrary to the stereotyped yawns of boredom often portrayed for such an endeavor, we loved it!  It was an evening of laughter and emotions as memories of past feats were conjured up.  Intermissions were complete with images depicted on the white screen by our hands and fingers in front of the lamp bulb  

Todd - 2004

     While on those family camping adventures, Cindy and I quite often did something individually with each of the kids as well.  If I took Todd one afternoon to do something, she would do something with Jodi and then the following day we would "switch it up".  I've taken them kayaking, fishing, rock stacking in a creek (to create pools) and exploring on islands; just to name a few of the excursions. 

     For the last few years, due to family schedules, I've taken the kids on their own overnight camp-out.  The premise is still the same as Cindy does something back home with one of our kids while I've got the other kid out in the woods.  Typically I try to center our camping around something each of my children enjoys.  With Jodi I usually go somewhere where we can swim.  This may or may not happen as much as we would like depending on the weather.  In addition, we'll catch up on sleep (hard to beat fresh air through a tent screen) and read and/or journal.  With Todd we usually go somewhere where we can play disc golf in route to a campground.  Each of the kids, because of their love for cross country, likes to run the trails of the park we are at.  It's a change from the monotony of running the same roads or routes back home.  Both Todd and Jodi also enjoy the campfire as a centerpiece for cooking and talking.  So even on an overnight trip, where we're hardly gone for 24 hours, we are immersed into a complete, camping experience.

     This summer I took the kids up to Blue Mound State Park in Wisconsin.  As a family we had camped there back in 2008.  It's also been a destination for past individual father-kid outings.  I brought Jodi on a Friday through Saturday trip and Todd on the following day, Sunday through Monday.  It was none too soon as Jodi was starting high school practice for fall sports that week and by the following weekend we were taking Todd to college.

     Both trips were unique and yet both were the same in that I got to spend time with them.  We stopped by our local Aldi's grocery store, shared a packet of beef jerky on the way up while riding in the old Jeep, set up camp, cooked brats and beans for dinner, read/journaled around the campfire, got a good night's sleep, had breakfast, relaxed and then packed up.  

Jodi and I on the East Tower at Blue Mound

     With Jodi we went to the redesigned pool (since this area has no natural lakes, it's the only State Park in Wisconsin with a pool).  It was fun (not deep enough to dive in like the old one) but it was also a bit chilly.  We visited the lookout towers after dinner and then took an evening drive through the hills and hollows; seeing several deer and raccoons while enjoying the beautiful sunset.  

Sunset over the Mound

In the morning we got up early to watch the sunrise; a surprising and ironic twist for a girl who likes her sleep.  She was able to return to her sleeping bag for a few hours afterwards while I journaled and read.  Before our breakfast of pancakes we also jumped on the trails around the base of the mound and ran

Sunrise from the Mound

between four and four and a half miles.  Our trip concluded with a bang when I was pulled over for speeding south of Mount Horeb.  I knew the area had a speed zone where I had to slow down, and was in the process of doing so, but not soon enough as she blinked her headlights at me and then quickly did a U-turn with all of the lights flashing.  I apparently needed to start slowing down at the soccer fields outside of the little town, not at the high school.

 Fortunately the officer actually wanted to hear my explanation and story of what we were doing.  Perhaps it was Jodi sitting cross-legged in the front seat reading, or the smell of wood smoke coming from the camping supplies piled in the back of our Jeep, but she let us go with a warning.  I couldn't believe it and had a hard time not shouting out with joy.  It was a warning I heeded, however, as the penalty would have been severe, and so I stored that in my memory bank for the next time I traveled through so that I could remember to slow down in time.

Todd and I with a sweat soaked trail map after ten miles

     After setting up camp with Todd a day later, we prepared for our long run.  Since early that morning we had been drinking water and preparing mentally for the longest

run we had had all summer.  Using the park's trail map we elected to run the outside edges, which meant we would be following the mountain bike paths.  The hills were so steep in parts that they were designed as switchbacks just to get up them.  At times I'm sure that our pace while running uphill was slower than what we could walk on a level surface.  Yet, it was fast enough that we actually caught mountain bikers who were attempting to pedal the incline...not once, but with two different groups.  It was a blast running and jumping over rocks, roots and ruts.  By the time we had finished running for an hour and twenty minutes (about 10 miles), I had

slipped on some gravel once, and tripped once, sprawling out onto the trail but with no adverse effects.  We were done by that time, mentally and physically.  We vowed to return next summer, however, and complete the entire system; but also decided it would be important to begin in the morning when we would have more daylight and energy to begin with.  We cleaned up, ate dinner, and sat around the fire reading by the combined light of the flames and Coleman lantern to the company of a family of raccoons.  

In the morning, after a breakfast of eggs and potatoes, we packed and headed south to Monroe and Twining Park where we played 18 holes of disc golf.  Todd loves this sport and can explain all of the discs, throws and technicalities.  I used two discs throughout the course and was happy if I could get to the basket in 4 throws.  Todd and his friends always play every hole of a course as a par 3 regardless of what it says it is.  According to our abilities we both played the front 9 holes well, but fatigue from our run the night before crept in, and we struggled down the back 9.  It was still a lot of fun though.  I've never actually golfed with clubs and a ball, and don't really plan to, but I'm guessing the feelings are similar.  You have good drives and putts as well as some near misses, or major screw ups.  Still, it's time in a great environ.

     I could camp out almost any night, anywhere, at any time (with the right equipment).  I love it.  Taking that love and sharing it with my kids on a "Dad-Outing"; and then combining that experience with activities they really enjoy, makes for good times and memories.  It was a good way to finish up Summer Break with Todd and Jodi.

     See you along The Way...