FISHIN' 2008

It’s fishin’ trip time again! We leave when Charlie is finished at the Greenhouse, and blast down I-55. We stop for some sleep at the motel where the old Diamond Restaurant, an old Route 66 landmark, once stood, past St Louis.

The next morning we hit I-44 west again, and get off at a Flying J for some breakfast. We see this baby in the parking lot:

We get to Genes Friday afternoon. This was not only a fishin’ year, this was a catchin’ year!

I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

GENE ASKS WHY HE HAS TO CLEAN ALL THE 'SLIMY BASTARDS'?

EAGLES AND OMELETS

My granddaughter Mary had heart surgery, a stay in the intensive care unit, and she and her mother are home recuperating. Pam and I took her brothers to eagle watch along the Mississippi River so Dad, Mom and Mary could relax and heal.

Pam and I usually take a mid-winter trip to the river every year to see the eagles, and Wabasha, MN is a favorite stop. There are usually eagles on the river, the National Eagle Center is there, and Slippery’s Bar has good sandwiches.

Last year, Pam and I had eaten Sunday brunch at the Anderson House Hotel, and Pam had remarked that it would be fun to bring some grandkids there some time. The hotel has a collection of cats that are lent to the guests if the guest should want one.
The Anderson House seemed to be a good place to spend the first night of our trip. We got a cat named Arnold to share our room. I spent most of the evening chasing the cat around the hotel as he would escape every time someone opened the door to our room. Arnold is a pretty famous cat, having at least one book written about him. He was pretty fat, too. Charlie and Sam had a pretty good time with him.

ARNOLD WATCHES THE SHOWER

The next morning, we had the buffet for breakfast. The chef wanted to know if Charlie could help him make omelets, and Charlie jumped at the chance. He made one for me and one for himself, and got a certificate declaring that he was an ‘Expert Omelet Maker’ from the chef.

Then Charlie, Sam, and I drove over the bridge and south on the Wisconsin Great River Road a few miles to see if we could spot any eagles. We saw a couple of eagles, but also spotted a lot of American white Pelicans, the first of many we would see on this trip.

We headed back to Wabasha to pick up Pam and report on our hunting so far. We packed the car and headed to the National Eagle Center downtown. The Eagle Center was now home to three rescued Bald Eagles and one rescued Golden Eagle. The boys' favorite part was the feeding demonstration.

AN EMPTY NEST, ABOUT THE SIZE OF A SMALL CAR, COULD WEIGH ONE TON!
We headed up the Minnesota side of the river, looking for eagles, to Red Wing, crossed to the Wisconsin side and looked downstream. The river was relatively ice-free, so there were no large concentrations of eagles near small patches of open water. The boys’ however, were great at spotting nests. I think we saw more nests, occupied and unoccupied than we had seen in all our previous trips.

PELICANS IN FORMATION

ONE PARENT WATCHES OVER THE NEST, THE OTHER TENDS TO THE YOUNG'UNS

PELICANS RESTING ON A SANDBAR

A YOUNG EAGLE RESTS IN A TREE

PELICAN IN FLIGHT

I DON'T KNOW HOW THEY GET THAT BEAK OFF THE GROUND, EITHER!

FORMING A "V"

AND HEADING UP RIVER

ENJOYING THE SUN WHILE KEEPING AN EYE ON THE NEIGHBORHOOD

ANOTHER OCCUPIED NEST

A LARGE NEST WITH THE HEAD OF AN EAGLE BARELY VISIBLE

RESTING, THINKING ABOUT FISH

A NEST ALMOST HIDDEN IN THE TREES

A SMALLER NEST, PROBABLY A YOUNG COUPLE

CHARLIE STALKS A FROG, BUT GETS GOOCHED

ANOTHER NEST. THE BOYS COULD REALLY SPOT THEM!

AN ADOLESCENT WITH MOSTLY ADULT COLOR, SOARING

ALMOST HIDDEN FROM VIEW

AN ADULT RETURNS FROM FISHING

WE SPOTTED THIS HANDSOME HAWK

AND HE DEMONSTRATED SOME ACROBATIC FLIGHT

ANOTHER LARGE NEST, HIDDEN AWAY IN THE WOODS

WE CHECKED ON THE PROGRESS REBUILDING BREITBACH'S

ON THE WAY THROUGH BALLTOWN

BLOOMING BLUE RIDGE

Bulls Gap, Tennessee. Named after John Bull, who was given a 55 acre grant in an important east west pass and started a stage line. Some years later, Volunteer Speedway was built.

Volunteer bills itself as the ‘world’s fastest dirt track’ and I can believe it. It is a bowl, and the track is way up the sides of the bowl. 32 degree banking on a 4/10-mile track means it is more like a carnival ‘wall of death’ than a racetrack. Stock cars have averaged over 123mph around this short track.

They were going to run a GNC race there in June. Pam reminded me that the Blue Ridge Parkway was supposed to bloom in June. Two reasons are better than one, so we headed for Tennessee.

We super-slabbed it to Kentucky, then jumped on some south-eastern Kentucky blacktop. Coal country. Mountains and twisty roads. I just followed the roads, trying to head kind of south and kind of east. We finally ran across US 23, the Hillbilly Highway, and made some time south toward Bulls Gap.

You can’t really appreciate the banking just looking at the track. Once the bikes start flying around, though, you are actually looking at the backs of the riders, not their sides, as they head down the short back straight.

This was not going to be a Harley-only race. Wild man Sam Halbert was there on the Memphis Shades Yamaha.

Smith plastered to the banking on his Harley.

Jess Roeder got into some body English sliding on the slippery red clay.

You can see the effort required to stand a bike up on the banking.

Gedeon was on a Triumph.

Halbert and Mees battle down the back straight during practice.

Halbert finally slides all the way up the banking and checks out the bales.

Varnes and Hacker around three and four.

Russell at speed.

Mees won the race, starting a string of three victories over the next three races. Bulls Gap, Lima, and Joliet.

The next morning, we headed for the Blue Ridge. We got onto the parkway in the late afternoon, after stopping at Wheels through Time, and went into cruising mode. Ride awhile. Stop awhile at an overlook. Ride a little more. Stop again for awhile.

The Parkway was blooming! We rode and stopped, rode and stopped, enjoying the sights. We were in full sit, do nothing on an old picnic bench at an overlook when a lone car pulled into the parking lot. A gentleman got out, pulled a fiddle from the back seat, faced the valley and began serenading the mountains. We sat, transfixed, through three songs. He put the violin back in the car and we applauded. I don’t think he had realized we were there until we started clapping.
I went over and talked to him for a while. He said he lived ‘down in the valley’, but came up once or twice a month to hear the fiddle from the hills, because it ‘sounded better’. I doubt if any violin at Carnegie Hall ever sounded sweeter.

We went our separate ways, he back to his valley, and we north along the Parkway. We got a room at the Bluffs Lodge, and had dinner at the restaurant on the Parkway. I tried the barbequed pork on two corn pancakes. Pretty good.

The next morning, we headed up the road, stopping at Mount Mitchell for breakfast. The breakfast was good, and the view was spectacular.

The flowers along the parkway were not in full bloom: we were a week early or a week late. But full bloom or not, they were beautiful. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

We pulled off the Parkway when we saw a sign for Grandfather Mountain. Pretty touristy, but we were tourists! They even had a small zoo with bears that were experts in begging food from the visitors.

Farther along the Parkway, we saw a sign for the Blue Ridge Music Center, along with a small hand-lettered sign announcing: MUSIC TODAY! We pulled in, enjoyed some traditional music, and looked through the exhibits in the center.

We continued up the Parkway to Humphries Gap, and turned West on US 60. 60 is the old US road that runs across the country, including West Virginia. We stopped at Hawk’s Nest to look at the view of the New River.

Then we followed the Kanawha River Valley and US 60 to Charleston, and headed for home.