I Have No Good Excuse

One of you sent me note congratulating me on my retirement, but then added, "Now you have no good excuse for not publishing your blog." Ouch! You can imagine my shame for not publishing last night (amd again last night). It is not a good excuse, but this will do.

Yesterday (Thursday) we (Dennis and I) had a chance to teach some younger fold the joys of fly fishing. After our treacherous experience on the middle Provo we knew that was not the place to take the new fisherpeople. After some research, we took Mathew (age 9, and Miranda, age 20) to Trible Fork Resevoir. The idea was to give them basic casting and presentation techniques.

Almost off the bat, the wind did not cooperate. Dennis and I did our best while Jack was forced to go solo. I was truly impressed to see him head up the feeder stream on his own. While I was proud, it was also up that same stream that a guy who could have been a serial killer had entered the water a little while sooner.

After a few minutes, Jack came down stream and asked Dennis to come look at this fishing hole he had found. We all followed Dennis. Dennis was in the hole acknowledging Jack's intuitive skills in finding such a nice hole. He took Jack's rod and was explaining why this was a good hole and low and behold a little rainbow trout hit his fly.

Jack still claims that was his fish. As we continued to practice casting skills, I was very proud of my boy who found the hole. Later in the evening when I explained the situation to several other parents, including my lovely wife, when I got to the part about letting Jack wonder up stream with a serial killer, I knew it was not my shining moment as a father.

After getting comfortable with the equipment, we made our way to a small stretch of Trible Fork River. Jack hit the water with a small (#18) Griffiths' Gnat pattern. There he caught his first fish solo. I brought Mathew to the pond and soon afterward, Dennis had Miranda on the pool of water and they were all catching fish. It was spectacular.

After a total of 16 landed fish and a couple of dozen almost landed fish, it was time to head back to the house. We were invited to Miranda's birthday dinner. She had chosen The Melting Pot. There were gobs of teenagers at one end of the table and Dennis, Jerene, Devin, I along with Mirnada's parents, Brian and Elizabeth (Our host for the evening).

After coating our veggies and bread with incredible Butterkase and Fontina cheese, boiling our pork, beef, chicken, veggies in a delicious wine mushroom garlic broth, we then submerged all kinds of sweets in a dark chocolate marshmallow gooey sticky thing. I did not partake of the dessert, as I really am trying to behave a bit. Dinner was accompanied by a 2010 Nobilo New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. I did not partake in that either as I was driving.

It was a great ending to a great day.

Friday, we had scheduled our walk through for our new Motor Home. It really is a beauty and really comfortable. Devin and I laughed as we remembered all the trailers and motor homes we have rented over the last 30 years and how much easier the gadgetry has become. No more wrestling with the side outs or canopies. They have made it really idiot proof to own one of theses and I look forward to disproving that theory.

When the walk through was over we got to cross the parking lot and go on a shopping spree at Camping World. The 30 dollar gift certificate lasted almost to eh second item we bought. Jack was really helpful loading our basket with almost everything he saw. Devin was on her own little shopping spree as well. Jerene did her best to impose some frugality to the process, but that backfired on her a couple of times.

On one of the items, (Chock Blocks which are little plastic ramps to block your tires) Jerenes said, "We just use rocks.", so we bought some Chock Blocks for her. She was very helpful in finding the best value on each item.

After the fun of buying all the stuff, I told our salesman at the RV place that we needed to return the vehicle because we spent all our money at Camping World.

I had a brief meeting in the afternoon and then got home in time to head off to another dinner. We had arranged a car to take Dennis, Jerene, Brian, and Elizabeth to one of our favorite non-Hanna places, The Tree Room at Sundance Resort. Unfortuantely, the limo had radiator problems and did not make it for the pick up. It was Brian (not me the other one) to the rescue as he drove all of us to Sundance.

Now we were running late and we hit some bad traffic in the lower Provo Canyon. Jerene reminded us that we could be stuck on the 5 freeway in CA. That made us appreciate the beauty of the canyon while we creeped our way to Sundance.

Dinner was amazing. While nursing a nice Glenfidich single malt, I chose a 2009 Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc for our white and a 2005 Pahlmeyer that was an incredible poor. We ended up closing the place and our driver Brian was greatly appreciated.

Today (Saturday) is my first real down day of just hanging out and taking care of some of the portfolio work ahead of me. So let's warp up the week in the market.