I'm Back!

I'm back on the blog thing, I'm back in Nebraska for the first time in 36 years, and I'm on my way back to Monroe.

What a week it's been.

Sunday began with a 5 hour run from Sheridan, Wyoming to Ennis, Montana. I arrived at the hotel around 2:45 PM local time, and waited for John and Ted to show up. At 6:15, I called Ted's wife in Loganville. She told me Ted had been sitting on the tarmac at Hartsfield for 3 hours waiting for clearance to take off. When they finally arrived, they were 5 hours late. Weather in Atlanta kept them prisoners on the plane for 5 hours before they took off on their 4 hour flight. I was glad I drove. Once they unpacked, the only thing they were good for was dinner and bed.

Monday morning we went to a place called Bear Trap Canyon. It's just downstream from the dam that forms Ennis Lake out of the Madison River. I broke my new fly rod in with a 16" rainbow trout that thought he was 20" long. The fish in Montana are strong.

Over the course of the next 6 days we fished places called Frenchman's Gulch, Hidden Lake, South Meadow Lake, Branham Lakes, the Upper and Lower Ruby River, and the Lower Madison River. Everywhere we went, the fish were huge, mean, and beautiful. The exception was the Branham Lakes. The fish there were the most gorgeous 8" brook trout I have ever seen.

Most of the places we went were pristine and alpine. Unfortunately, they were also populated by every biting insect known to man. Hidden Lake was a great example. There were at least 4 varieties of biting flies there. Only bathing in insect repellent kept us from being eaten entirely. At Frenchman's Gulch, the stream was a willow lined spring creek about 8 feet wide. It meandered through an alpine valley that was a riot of sage and wildflowers. It was here that Teddy found the mosquitoes. After 1 cast and 2 bites (from bugs) I went back to the truck and drowned myself in DEET. After that, it was only mildly annoying. Teddy was brave and struck off downstream. After about 20 minutes, John, who had gone upstream came back to where I was, and we went looking for Teddy. He came flying out of the willows like a bear was after him, soaking wet and entirely ready to leave. He jumped into the 50 degree creek to escape the bugs. Think about the swarm in the African Queen, and you might get an idea of what he went through.

We abandoned the Gulch, and went to the upper Ruby River, where there were fewer bugs, and still fewer fish.

I won't bore you with a day by day accounting, but must mention some of the critters we saw. One evening at dusk, we drove up into the back of beyond and saw the moose. On the way up there, there were whitetail deer grazing in herds in the low pastures, mule dear grazing on the higher pastures. One morning I rose earlier than everybody else, went outside the hotel, and was surprised to find 2 pronghorn grazing in the field directly adjacent to the hotel. Pronghorn are supposed to be wary, hard to get close to, and require a long range rifle to hunt. In July, before hunting season, you could kill them with a rock. We also saw elk, eagles, trumpeter swans, every variety of duck known to man, hawks, falcons, and the places where bears and cougars had walked. The cougar tracks were disconcerting because they were in the road as we were coming back from some place remote, and had not been there as we went in.

The picture at the top of the column is Scott's Bluff, a major landmark on the Oregon trail, and the reason the town I'm in now has the name it does.

Tomorrow, I plan to hit Cabela's in Sidney, Nebraska, Seward, where I went to school and Bob was born, and then Concordia, Missouri to help Grandma Kirchhoff celebrate her birthday.

Tonight, I plan to sleep about 10 hours, after I post a bunch of pictures.

It's been an incredible trip so far, but I miss you all and am really looking forward to being home.