“You got a beer?” Grady asked quizzically as he nibbled a fry. I nodded, taking a sip of a cold Rainier. “I didn’t know they had beer here,” he responded, genuinely surprised. The flicker of a neon Miller Lite sign illuminated our table. Three truckers sat at the bar. One had just picked up a load, Read More
My son pulls his camo ball cap tight over his eyes. My daughter grabs her leotard and jumps out of the car. She has gymnastics for the next two and a half hours. The boys are headed to the hills. For nearly two weeks we’ve been running in high gear. My wife has been, Read More
We drove higher up the steadily shrinking dirt road looking for a decent spot to camp. Our options were diminishing. We just needed a spot for one night. It was Memorial Day weekend and every campground was full. Several Forest Service roads still had not opened for the season. A fact we did not realize, Read More
Six days, five nights and one of the most impressive rivers in the lower forty eight. Cut through the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the Middle Fork of the Salmon is as good as it gets.
Will the family all in on the action we caught fish until we were too tired to continue. Satiated, we roasted marshmallows over a fire, discussed the finer points of making smores, weather or not fish have tongues, and why we can’t hunt domestic cows.
For our next trip the kids demanded we bring two sponges, I’m more than happy to comply with their demand.
Then the line came tight. A large swirl followed and I got my first glimpse of what was on the line. This wasn’t your average trout. My son had the net at the ready and forgot all his previous reasons to go home.
Utter joy on the part of the kids was punctuated by complaints that “this is a terrible day to be out, the bugs are awful”. We worked to connect the dots.
We sat in the pickup and squinted into the lifting darkness at daybreak. Vague shapes gradually emerged three miles distant — fifty elk grazing along a hillside. We spent the next two hours creeping toward them. Slipping into range we caught sight through the timber of dark legs gliding over snow. As I raised my, Read More
After years of talk we finally pulled the trigger and got a boat. We had debated the merits of a raft vs. drift boat, new vs. used, and mostly how the heck we could pay for either. In the end a used drift boat with a price we couldn’t resist fell into our lap. It’s, Read More