Fuzzy Britches

Rock it Colorado

2008-08-13T23:35:00.016-05:00

In the month between my defense and moving to Wisconsin, Brian drove out to Missouri and we met Wimmy in Colorado for a week of wandering and camping.

It was a 14-hour trip from Columbia to our rendezvous. We crossed Kansas as quick as possible and spent sometime in the southeastern Colorado desert. We took the top down on the Jeep and headed up in the mountains, where there was still snow on the ground.

We hit up Mesa Verde National Park and checked out the cliff dwellings. Sort of traveled through the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, got somewhat lost off-roading in Utah, and saw a jack-a-lope.

We passed through Durango, chased elk and some kind of pronghorn, got the Jeep stuck in the snow, and visited the hospital.

We saw Kit Carson's house, dead-ended in a snowy mountain pass after dark, and touched four states at once.

We drove the Jeep through a snowstorm with no windows, we scaled cliffs and crawled through tunnels, and we drove all night to escape the tornadoes.

And I bought a ring for Carrie in New Mexico.

Photo albums: Colorado and More Colorado

Boo yah

2008-07-10T23:41:00.006-05:00

Hot damn I've got a lot of news.

Moved back from DC to Missouri for a month, now I'm in Milwaukee.

We've been staying with Carrie's folks, which has been great. Carrie's been dissertating and I've been working my internship.

At the end of August I'll be moving to Memphis with Carrie for the long term.

Oh yeah, we're engaged.

Boo yah!

Trying to plan a wedding. We're thinking Mexico.

Been working hard, and fishing a lot.

Caught this guy on a 5" Swimsenko.

Also caught a northern pike last weekend, but no camera on the pontoon boat.

I am a master.

2008-05-04T15:10:00.002-05:00

I successfully defended my master's project last week and turned in all the obligatory paperwork. I am officially a master.

Boo yah!

Way behind on the adventure postings, though I suppose it's a good thing that I've been going on so many adventures I don't have time to write posts about them.

Here's something I learned this semster:

MMM beef jerky.

Best. Girlfriend. Ever.

2008-02-18T19:00:00.004-06:00

My roommates, Mike and Gavin, and I have been doing a lot of fishing lately. You might say we're obsessed. Or at least Mike and I are obsessed and Gavin puts up with it.

This was going to be a post about the ridiculous number of ginormous fish we've caught in such exotic locations as Lake Anna, Lake Burke, the Shenandoah River and Great Falls National Park, but that would take quite some time and I'd have to upload tons of photos of really big, awesome fish.

So instead, check out what Carrie got me for Valentine's Day:

Six Rapalas and a "Pro's Secrets for Catching More and Bigger Fish" DVD.

Kick ass.

Tan Doug Tours St. Croix - Episode 2

2008-01-26T16:09:00.000-06:00

The ocean view from Doug's porch.

Continuing the storyline from Episode 1:

It's Day Three, I think. I haven't eaten much since Day One, as I have food poisoning, so my "facts" may be slightly skewed. Please correct me in the comments section if in fact I've boogered up some chronology.

As I've said before, St. Croix is just absolutely beautiful.

We started the day out with a little shopping in downtown Christiansted.

(click any pic for the whole album.)

We walked down to the boardwalk and checked out all the sailboats.

Gilligan inquires about a three-day tour.

Then, of course, it's time to check out another beach, at another resort.

A nice view en route to the beach.

Piratey ship (Doug, i can't remember the name), is a National Historic Landmark -- the last pilot schooner used by the US Navy. It offers sunset cruises.

We grabbed a bite for lunch before laying out under the coconut trees. Apparently more people die every year from coconuts falling on their heads than from shark attacks. Having not eaten in 48 hours, I overindulged myself and ate most of a ginormous hamburger. Shouldn't have done that -- the ole gastrointestinal tract, lying in wait, would gather its strength to exact demonic revenge in a few hours.

Country boy and Gilligan pose at the Buccaneer.

My sexy girlfriend.

It was awesome. I was really feeling back on the top of my game after lunch. We floated around, jumped off a little pier and napped in the sun. Those daily naps in the sun on the sand have ruined me. I've still yet to get my body used to a normal amount of sleep each day.

This is what I'm talking about.

Shark bait.

The edge of the Buccaneer beach. Don't sail onto the rocks or you'll end up in Davy Jones' locker.

After our piratey adventure at the Buccaneer, Doug led us to a secret beach. It's pretty amazing being the only people on a beach of the caliber as those in St. Croix. With no open container laws. We hiked around a bit, watched the sun go down and hightailed it out of there while we had enough light to see the mangrove trail.

Miller time.

Where to next? Cheesburgers in Paradise, of course!

Doug ordered a couple rum specialties for he and Carrie, the Cruzan Confusion and the Painkiller, while I stuck to water.

Carrie is a fan.

We watched a bit of Steve Gatz on the guitar before going back to Doug's for the evening.

That's all I've got for today, but check back for Tan Doug Tours St. Croix - Episode 3: An offroadin, tidal poolin, fishin and sunset watchin adventure.

The Pack loses and Lincoln dies

2008-01-23T14:38:00.001-06:00

We've begun our seminars downtown. They're pretty cool. Work starts Monday.

Plenty of time today to do a bit of site seeing before the afternoon session.

The Petersen House, or the House Where Lincoln Died, was just a few blocks away, so we hit it first.

Just a couple rooms, nothing spectacular, though it was kind of neat being in the room Lincoln died. The Ford Theatre is across the street. Maybe we'll get to it one of these days.

Ben, Alex, Morgan, Gavin and me.

Apparently, because he was so tall, Lincoln died laying diagonally on the bed. The bed in the room is the same size as the original, which is owned by the Chicago Historical Society.

Clicky for more pictures.

Gavin, Alex and I walked over to the White House, harassed lazy squirrels and just kind of farted around.

The Washington Monument isn't nearly as big as I remember.

My sister and her boyfriend, Jon, joined Ben and I to watch the Packers/Giants game Sunday.

Bad game. Won't say anything about it except that it was fun to get together and eat some burgers, quesadillas and veggies, and drink some beer.

I was questioned by the NSA today and stalked the King of the Jungle

2008-01-19T18:48:00.000-06:00

OK, so I wasn't really questioned, but an NSA cop did make me run through the pictures on my digital camera for him.

My sister Emily, her boyfriend Jon, Mark and I went to the NSA's National Cryptologic Museum today near Laurel, Md.

Afterwards we stopped at National Vigilance Park -- a bit of greenspace off the highway where they parked three big planes. Apparently, all the buildings behind the park are NSA and picture taking is a no-no. We're farting around at the park and an NSA cop rolls up in an SUV cruiser and rolls down the passenger side window.

"How're you doin?"

"Fine. That a digital camera?"

"Yeah."

"Come over to this side of the car please."

I walk over.

"Let me see your pictures."

"Ok..."

I start scrolling through and he sees one he'd like a closer peek at, touches my camera and turns off the preview function.

"What happened?"

"You pressed a button. Hang on."

"OK."

He looks at all the pictures. Nothing scandalous, except maybe this picture of me nearly getting sucked into the jet intake of a EA-3B Navy Recon jet.

(Click pic for photo album)

"Anybody else got a camera?"

"Yeah," Mark says.

"Let me see it."

He scrolls through the pictures, same as before.

"Can I take your picture?" I query.

"No."

"What?"

"No."

"Oh, OK."

"Anybody else have a camera?"

"I have one in the car," Emily says.

"That's OK," he says as he finishes flipping through Mark's pictures.

"How long are you all going to be here?"

No one answers. Cop mumbles something about taking pictures of the buildings behind us.

"Can I take pictures that way?" I ask, gesturing at the buildings.

"No."

"Oh."

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the Crypto Museum.

We arrived shortly after 10 a.m. and wandered around for a few minutes before a dude announced he'd give us and the other ramblers a tour of the joint.

It was a pretty good tour, I guess. He covered the bits about the Enigma machine purdy well, but closer to present day started weaving in tales about being vigilant of terrorists and and started explaining history by anecdote and it was a little hard to follow. We wandered off after a while and poked our heads back in every now and again.

Enigma!

Just a couple jolly gentlemen.

Emily shows us how to use some big-ass crypto machine.

Maps are cool.

Mark starts playing war games.

Then we headed over to the National Vigilance Park, next to the NSA. Let me ask you a question: Why the hell would you park a park next the NSA? Do the NSA cops harass every tourist who stops to look at the planes, or did we just look scary?

Maybe it was our four matching pea coats.

Done with the NSA, we hop back in the highway and drive to Baltimore. It's aquarium time!

We get our tickets all sorted out and grab a quick bite to eat before the 4D immersion movie begins.

It was basically a 15-minute edited-down version of a Planet Earth episode with David Attenborough which employed 3-D glasses, squirts of water, vibrating seats, burst of air and bubbles (like the kind you blew with a little wand when you were a kid). It was cool, but definitely aimed at the wee ones.

The aquarium was really cool. We saw lots of neato aminals. Like these guys:

We like swimming, but we also like sitting down to rest our weary flippers.

And this guy:

Look at me! I'm a Waxy Monkey Frog!

And this guy!

Gimmie a kiss! I'm an electric EEEEEEEEL!

Don't forget these fellas!

Pssh! We scoff at you! We poison dart frogs are too cool to face you. Neener neener.

You'd better put down that spear gun, mister, or we'll tell!

The rest of the animals can be found in the photo album.

We were quite thirsty after the rainforest and Australian desert exhibits, so we wandered down to the airport-like strip mall off the water and grabbed a bite to eat and a drink. Which is when we found the King of the Jungle, aka XXX, aka Vin Diesel, aka bad-dresser man, wandering around aimlessly from floor to floor.

Finally a janitor asked him something and he bought some chicken.

"Dude, have you seen my bro?"

Let's get another look at your lovely coat.

"Normally, both your asses would be dead as fucking fried chicken, but you happen to pull this shit while I'm in a transitional period so I don't wanna kill you, I wanna help you. But I can't give you this case, it don't belong to me. Besides, I've already been through too much shit this morning over this case to hand it over to your dumb ass."

And with that the great adventure was over. Stay tuned for more episodes of Tan Doug Tours St. Croix!

Tan Doug Tours St. Croix - Episode 1

2008-01-17T23:07:00.000-06:00

As some of you may know, Doug played ultimate tour guide to Carrie and I for a week in St. Croix, from the 6th of January to the 14th. It was unbelievable. So unbelievable and cram-packed with adventure, in fact, that I'm going to break the shenanigans up by day, or however I feel like breaking it up when I actually sit down to type.

Mike was good enough to take us to the airport at the ass-crack of dawn on the 6th. I don't know about Carrie, but I was pretty well exhausted, given when we went to bed would have given us about 5 hours of sleep. But the airline called us with an automated message at about 3 a.m. to let us know our connecting flight had been delayed 80 minutes. No biggie, right? Well, that would put us just about too late to catch the last ferry from St. Thomas, where we were landing, to St. Croix, our ultimate destination.

Well while I was enjoying my after-flight piss, Carrie got on the phone to the ferry people, and they said yes, it is leaving in 5 minutes, so you'd better hurry.

We're a ways a way from the marina and I'm sure we're not going to make it, but into the taxi van we go. Whole lot of hurry up and wait, that was. Then taxi man takes off like a whirling dervish and through the streets of St. Thomas we zoom.

And, can you believe it? They actually held the ferry for us. For at least 20 minutes.

It would be a decision they would soon regret.

Everything was fine and dandy on the outer ferry platform until the choppy water starts spitting on us and we get a bit worried about Carrie's laptop. She's not feeling too hot by this point either -- not having taken any Dramamine or anything. Carrie tries to go inside and long story short, pukey puke on the decky deck.

It's a two-hour ferry ride.

Doug met us at the ferry station. The plan was to listen to some live music and drink moonshine in the rainforest, but that plan was scratched as per Carrie's vomitus disposition. (We'd make it to the rainforest our last full day on the island.)

So we headed back to Doug's pimp condo on the coast and mixed up some drinks (equal parts Cruzan mango rum, pineapple rum, orange rum and orange juice) and shot the shit on Doug's porch (which is seriously as big as my last apartment).

Our plan for the following day would be to take a tour of a National Radio Astronomy Observatory telescope on the eastern end of the island.

Doug had an appointment set up for the tour at 11 a.m., in theory. We arrived early and joined a couple waiting for the same tour. They'd been pressing the talk buttons outside the gate for some time and had received no response. We broke out the beers at about 11:20 and decided to camp out -- it was to be a battle of wills. How long could they stay holed up beyond the barbed wire? We were willing to find out.

If memory serves, and it may not, we hung out there until a little bit after noon. We'd return later to harass the telescope. We then traveled to the eastern-most point in the United States, Point Udall. It was neato -- probably our first glorious view of the coastline.

You can see Buck Island, a National Park, in the background.

Apparently, there is techincally another eastern-most point of the U.S. in Alaska, across the international dateline.

The Millennium Monument.

After we'd had our fill of Point Udall, it was back to stalk the telescope.

Part of the descent from Point Udall back to the telescope. Sorry it's bumpy.

Back at the radio observatory we thought it would be a grand idea to off-road in the back way, with predictable results.

After that we rolled down the mountain to take a gander at the private yacht club.

Hello birdies!

Our stakeout at the observatory had worked up quite a hunger, so we headed over to Dugggan's for lunch. Back in cell service, Doug called the tour guide and asked "What the hell?" Apparently some errands had taken longer than dude had planned, and he invited us back over for a tour after lunch. Hurrah!

He met us at the gate and took us in the little building. Nearly the first words out of his mouth were used to assure us that neither the FBI or CIA use the telescope to listen to our conversations. Took the question right out of my mouth, since another NRAO scope is located at Green Bank, W.Va., a facility adjacent to the NSA listening station in Sugar Grove. Apparently the facility in St. Croix doesn't have the capabilities for transmission, and its data FedEx'd every few days back to the Very Long Baseline Array headquarters in Socorro, NM.

This telescope is 1 of 10 scattered around the United States that together all function as one giant telescope call the Very Long Baseline Array. It simulates a telescope with a dish 5300 miles across. Holy cow. Check out the PDF brochure and the Web site.

Time for hard hats!

Up we go, all the way to the inside of the dish!

Holy crap this was awesome.

After the tour we headed to the beach. Fortunately, the Open Beach Act of 1994 says resorts can't claim private rights over beaches, so anyone is able to go to any beach on the island. Unfortunately, this is where the food poisoning hit. I won't go into details, but I didn't stop throwing up until about 1 or 2 a.m. (Damn you conch chowder!!)

On the way back to Doug's we stopped at an old sugar plantation overlooking the coast.

UPDATE: Apparently this is not true. I was so addled that I didn't realize this was actually the following day.

The property is for sale and offers a nice view of the coast.

The North Shore, just after sunset.

Stay tuned folks, for more craaazy adventures.

Return from the Islands

2008-01-15T08:38:00.000-06:00

The beach by Doug's apartment on St. Croix. This is where I did a little bit of fishing.

Carrie and I have returned from a week in St. Croix with Doug. I'm not going to write a big post today, but suffice it to say it was frickin' glorious. Doug is one hell of a tour guide. Stories and more pictures coming soon!

Bit of news: I will be living and working in Milwaukee this summer, from early June to early September. Boo yah! I have seminars and stuff here in DC next week, and my job starts two weeks from yesterday. I'll be done end of April, at which time I'll roll back to CoMo to defend my master's project. Hurrah!

Goodbye CoMO

2007-12-16T12:37:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post here folks.

End of the semester craziness has kept me from doing any blogging about our recent adventures. I'll get back into it soon, I promise.

Anyways, here's the news:

Moving tomorrow out to DC for the semester. Gonna stop in Columbus for a couple days en route. Trying to fit all my gear in my Jeep, which will be an adventure in itself.

Then to DC for a couple days to unload and get to know my neighborhood.

Then home to Charleston for Christmas. Carrie will get in town just after and then we'll head to the farm for a little adventuring. Then off to Morgantown for some shenanigans before heading back to DC for New Years.

Then it's off to the US Virgin Islands. Hurrah!

So here's a couple photos from Thanksgiving.

My casserole!

Grant, why is Sam's head buried in my fuzz?

We found this little Furby furball standing outside Carrie's apartment in the freezing cold late at night with no owner in sight. We took him in overnight and posted some signs around. Long story short, the owner saw the signs, came over and freaked out happy to have "Petey" back.

Arachnocrazia

2007-11-09T01:26:00.000-06:00

Here's a little video from earlier this fall. Dr. Mike and D$ had a sweet garden out back, with tomatoes and peppers and a pumpkin and all sorts of other goodies. They also had some little stink bugs who loved the tomatoes; they also had a giant frickin' yellow garden spider that loved the stink bugs. Of course we tossed plenty of bugs into the spider's web. They stick better if you give 'em a good squeeze -- enough to wound them so they can't escape but not so much they stop wiggling.

Check out the mad spinning action from this spider. He hit the jackpot when we found him.

13.5 hours of bliss and ignorance

2007-11-07T21:57:00.000-06:00

FishMasterMezz works hard to retain his courtesy title.

It was a great plan: Arrive before dawn and stay until we catch some fish. We didn't figure it would be 11 hours after our arrival before someone caught the first fish worth mentioning.

I say it was the first fish worth mentioning, because the largemouth bass I caught before the rest of the harvest party arrived was pretty small. Whoops, I mentioned it. Anyway, the crew didn't believe me when I mentioned it to them, even though I took a picture. And Sir Gavin of Jers caught a clam. Those pesky clams.

We did catch a gaggle of tourists though. They seemed to think Dr. Mike in his many-pocketed manssiere would be a nice Norman Rockwell background to their vanity portraits. At least, they did until Dr. Mike stuck his ass out like a cat presenting. I laughed till I cried. No joke. Our laughter and Mike's ass didn't seem to discourage them from hanging out and blabbering for a solid 30 minutes though. Here's three of them after their return from up-lake.

So I arrived at 7 a.m. The rest of the all-day crew (Dr. Mike, D$ and Dave) arrived a short time later and David Laurence Fishbourne caught this honker at 6 p.m. Nothing in between. ELEVEN hours people. But it was awesome. So relaxed. Tequila helps.

(clicky for album)

We grilled burgers and chicken for lunch after Carrie, Layla, Gavin, Will and Alex arrived, and spent most of the day getting lures caught on what I'd like to believe were pirate ships forever committed to Davy Jones' locker during the heat of battle. As this was Little Dixie Lake my powers of deduction lead me to believe they were likely Confederate corsairs extorting funds for their war chest from the good people of Boone County. I'll bet there are cannons down there. I say we get some wetsuits and snorkels and pay back our student loans with the inevitable booty.

I lost my lucky Rapala to one of those scoundrels. It escaped though, and while it floundered around (ha!) I threw it a lifeline in the form of a fine balsa faux fish on an invisible monofilament.

Dave cut his fish up and stuck it a ziplock and about an hour later I caught a catfish too! Hurrah! It was quite a pickerupper after 12 hours of standing in mud.

Fat face!

I did my best to make a couple nice filets, and I don't think I screwed it up too bad. They're living in my freezer.

And then Dr. Mike whispered sweet nothings into the misty water and viola! He caught one too. He was probably just waiting till we caught ours.

And with that, and a few more casts for good measure, we packed up and rolled back to town. Thirteen and half hours after arrival.

The long and winding road

2007-11-06T17:31:00.001-06:00

Since apparently fishing is too much of a "sedentary" activity, Carrie insisted we take a little hike on the MKT Trail here in Como.

(clicky for album)

So we took Sam down to the trail Sunday for a little walk. It's a pretty nice trail, though I'd like to smack whatever genius came up with the idea to build little bits of gym equipment every 30 yards. I mean, come on. Really.

(this one nearly broke when I sat on it)

My favorite was the three lengths of wood laid together in a triangle on a concrete slab. Like a curb for stretching your Achilles tendon. And then built a sign with instructions on how to use it. Engineering and artistic genius together at last! Give that guy or gal a frickin Nobel Prize. I mean, Al Gore did it with a slideshow -- I don't see why a guy who formed a complicated shape out of wood in a public place should not get the same recognition.

But don't plan on enjoying your bicycle on the trail. I mean, you're allowed to ride on the trail -- you are merely forbidden to enjoy that beautifully welded, two-triangle alloy frame and its mastermathematic gear ratios that let you glide over impacted gravel like a wheelless wheelbarrow down an icy embankment.

Really though, great trail. It was a lot of fun and it was a beautiful day. Carrie has good ideas. She goes running a lot. I walk places sometimes. I am getting too sedentary.

Oh, and to the lady who was wouldn't cross the bridge -- hang in there. I know Sam is pretty scary looking.

Adventures in Pizza: Chapter 1

2007-11-02T15:12:00.000-05:00

So we here at Fuzzy Britches have entered a new frontier of adventuring -- pizza.
Each week (or whenever we feel like it) we will be exploring a wild frozen tundra chock full of these sedentary culinary creatures.

Our hardworking staff certainly eats enough pizza, so why not allow our two loyal readers to reap the benefits of all this first-hand knowledge? We're pioneers, truly.

Last week we ate a Kashi Mediterranean Pizza. It sure looks pretty on the box, and by golly, it looked pretty coming out of the oven too. MMM! Just look at that feta cheese, spinach and red peppers. The peppers were the bees knees, fo' real. Makes our mouthes water. If the crust wasn't so cardboardy we just might have drooled to death. It could happen. Good thing it was a flax seed crust, whatever that's supposed to be.

It's ALL NATURAL ! And NEW !

Kashi has a couple other frozen pizzas, too.

Stay tuned until next week for DiGiorno Thin Crispy Crust Spinach, Mushroom & Garlic Pizza!

Froggies!

2007-10-29T16:48:00.000-05:00

My good friend Brian came to visit over Labor Day weekend, and we went offroading with the Pells to Cedar Creek. The water was pretty darn low and we were able to capture a bunch of froggies in various stages of metamorphosis.

(more your mouse off the slideshow to disappear the menu)

More on our Labor Day weekend adventures to come, including our expedition into the earth below Boone County.

Hallelujah, it's raining fish!

2007-10-27T22:09:00.000-05:00

Well, not quite. But I did finally catch a catfish, with a chicken liver and shrimp cocktail. Yay.

(click to see the entire album)

D. Lawrence "Fishbourne" Mezz, Mr. "Down" Lowe, Jake Smeagol and I arrived at about 2 p.m. and left around 7:30 p.m. after the sun went down. Caught it as the sun was getting ready to go down just after 6 p.m. DL caught a largemouth bass with a Rapala Shad-rap, and Mr. Lowe caught a clam with a lure he bought after being seduced by the videos playing at Bass Pro Shop. Ended the evening with dinner and margaritas at El Mageuy Mexican restaurant. Boo-yah.

It's on this weekend.

2007-10-26T01:09:00.001-05:00

(click to see more photos in this gallery)

Carrie is giving me crap about not posting as much as I should, so I'm writing to say to the fishes: It's on. You're going down. How do you like dynamite, punks? A TNT enema, perhaps?

We had some good fishing on Sunday. And by we, I mean everyone else. I did catch something rather tiny toward the end, but eh, what are you gonna do?
We stayed from sunup till close to 4:30 p.m. Niiiice.

Went out again real quick on Tuesday. Mike caught this beast, and a couple other smaller ones, and I was useless.

(click to see more photos in this gallery)

I hear through the grapevine that there was some serious shit-talking between a couple members of the trawling troubadours, so I may have to do something about that. You hear that fishes!? It's on.

Freakish fishing

2007-10-14T23:26:00.001-05:00

Carrie, D$ and I headed back to the lake Sunday morning for a couple hours of fishing. It was excellent, save for a lot of aggravation with new line on my little collapsible rod. It kept propelling itself off the reel and getting tangled.. Eventually I tied the end of the line from the working reel to the bad reel and wound enough line on there to make do. While I was fighting with my jacked-up reel, Carrie, of course, caught a frickin' monster with some worms. Not quite sure what kind of fish it was, but it was big enough to extend from tips of my fingers a couple inches past my elbow. It had a huge mohawk-like bony protrusion on its head, a little mouth and big scales. Thought it was a catfish at first, but no whiskers. Carrie thinks it might be a little carp. She didn't want to hold it up though.

Update: Dave thinks it might be a freshwater drum, though I think the fish was a bit more narrow than that. I'm also not sure it had that front dorsal fin. Closest ID I've seen is a grass carp, though it doesn't quite have the bony mohawk like Carrie's fish.

(click to see the whole album)

Then D$ caught a bluegill. She was using worms too.

And FINALLY, I caught a fish. I was using a Rapala Shad Rap (shallow runner floating minnow) and kept getting bites but no fishies. Switched to a smaller diving minnow and two casts later this little tiny largemouth bass landed at my feet.

Julia tried to eat the fish, and chased them out in the water after we released them. I think she wanted to be friends with the big freak fish.

Also, here's a map of the lake. We spent all of our time today near the little point just south of the fishing dock.

My camera is broken, and I forgot Carrie's, so all these photos were taken and e-mailed from my camera phone. Nice.

I hear there's something fishy going down just outside of town

2007-10-12T00:05:00.001-05:00

I cut my work short today and headed to a local lake with Carrie and Mike and Dave. It was jolly fun. Bought some new lures. One such lure, a big fishy, drew much criticism from Carrie. "I grew up on a lake...yadda yadda...you'll never catch anything with a lure that big." Two casts later a frickin monster ate my lure and snapped my line. So there! But...she was the only one of us who actually caught a fish...

(click on the picture for the rest of the album from this glorious adventure)

It got dark too damn early, and too damn cold. I tried these glow stick bobber things, but the fish just weren't havin it. So I stuffed the glow stick in a bottle, tied on the line and cast it out into the lake. We took some pot shots at the faint, bobbing glow with a pellet gun until it got too cold, then headed to Culvers for dinner.

The End.

Welcome to Arkansas

2007-08-26T21:27:00.000-05:00

My duties at work officially ended on August 10, a Friday, and I didn't need to be back to Columbia until the following Thursday. So I thought I'd go on a little adventure.

It was a last minute trip, and I couldn't get any takers, so I decided to head off on a solo trip.

Requirements: It had to be cheap, it had to be outdoorsy and it had to be some place I'd never been before. I settled on the Ozark National Forest in northern Arkansas, by the Buffalo National River.

I meant to leave Friday after my work shift, but it was such a busy week I had done no planning, let alone packing. So I left Saturday afternoon after running some errands and throwing together my gear. The trip down was long but no problem. It was a nice drive, as I stayed on slower highways. I saw some cool terrain, and arrived in Arkansas close to sun-down.

The problem was, I still hadn't really done any planning, except for looking at the atlas and printing some crap off the Internet about the area.

When I arrived I had no idea where the campsite was. One wrong turn led me down a long and rocky forest service road that seemingly would never end. It turned into some crazy night-time offroading, so it could have been worse.

I returned to the main road and stopped at the first campsite I could find. I took one of the last sites -- right next to the bathhouse -- so my introduction to the Arkansas woods was punctuated by the slamming of doors and flushing of toilets while I tried to sleep. The same sounds woke me up early the next morning. A campsite neighbor stopped by and we talked about tents and bears and Alaska and then I hit the road, in search of a ranger station for a good map.

I found the most secluded campground, right on the river, at Rush Landing. Rush is an old zinc-mining ghost town. On my way to the site I stopped to poke my nose around some of the dilapidated buildings and take some pictures. There was the sound of plodding feet before a rather large blue-grey wildcat jumped out of a building and lunged into the surrounding brush about 15 yards from where I stood.

It was a strange-looking cat -- much bigger than any domesticated cat, but not a bobcat or a mountain lion. It was much too far away from any kind of civilization to be a domesticated cat anyway. I have no idea what it was.

I made it to the campsite without becoming Kibbles 'n' Bits and met my neighbor. Bob and his girlfriend were getting ready to leave, so I'd finally be all alone. But before they left Bob stopped by to shoot the shit a bit and share some of my beef jerky. He had been pulled over by the Park Service the day before. They searched his car and traded him a $250 ticket for a joint.

I related to Bob the story of the wildcat, without telling him exactly where it was. He knew the cat -- "Did it jump out of the second building on the left, if you were going back that way," he asked. Why indeed it did. He described the cat in perfect detail and said he thought it looked some kind of oversized Persian. I, however, can assure you it looked nothing like this:

After they left I took a nap, read for a bit and cooked a backpacker's dinner with my new alcohol stove (which ROCKS). Carrie gave it to me for my birthday. The sun went down a bit and I hiked up the river a ways to watch all the animals come down to the water for dinner.

If you look carefully here, you can see a Great Blue Heron at the water's edge, and three deer wading across the river.

I'd say I nearly stepped on a cottonmouth,
but isn't that what everyone always says when they spot a snake?

Night came and as I was using my headlamp to do a couple things before hopping into the tent, many many pairs of eyes popped up around the campsite.

Then I heard a snarl beyond the range of my headlamp. Great. The wildcat has come to eat me, and he's brought his friends. But I'm exhausted and sweaty and muddy so I tried not to think about it. I went to sleep on top of my bed roll with my right hand on my knife and my left hand cradling my headlamp over my crotch.

I had a solid hour-long nap before the smell of cat piss and life-or-death snarling awoke me.

I lifted the rainfly and shined my light out toward the noises. Oh good. No wildcats. Just 15-20 monster raccoons. I do not exaggerate with these numbers. I was completely surrounded by these demon creatures.

The campsite was apparently in the four corners of the raccoon territories, as various raccoon factions fought tooth and claw within 15 feet of my tent all night, vying for the rights to my food. They sounded like big cats fighting, and reek of cat piss. I could smell them getting close to the tent before I even heard them.

Apparently a few of the raccoons from the more clever faction had learned how to climb the slippery metal poles that were designed to protect your food.

Then I lost my mind. I flew out of the tent, and armed with a big stick -- lets call it the Stick of Justice -- I unleashed all I could at the raccoons, trying to get them to go shoo.

I whacked one off the pole with a homerun-worthy swing, sending said raccoon and the end of the Stick of Justice flying. The tip of the Stick of Justice met another raccoon in the ribs with a well-placed throw. The single stone within a 50-yard radius came in handy. As did a log by the fire pit. Then the raccoons found my jeep, and were literally fighting in my back seat. The Stick of Justice responded accordingly. I realized that I had left a pack of high-energy Clif Bar-brand gummybear things under the seat, which were now eaten. So I was fighting raccoons hopped up on sports energy snacks. I felt like a gladiator in the coliseum surrounded by lions.

In the end, the raccoons won. I finally crashed in my tent a little after 2 a.m. The sleep itself was a little nerve-wracking because they were still fighting outside my tent. Had the raccoons more effectively banded together to go on the offensive, my tent would offer little protection. In an effort to save weight and not sweat to death while sleeping I'd only brought the rain fly and footprint.

It seems my offensive stick-wielding had only prolonged the inevitable. I awoke to a chewed-threw tent bag now mostly empty of food. They had eaten my entire pack of pita bread, and eaten into my two backpacker's meals and beef jerky. They only thing they didn't chew into was my jar of peanut butter, which was so unappetizing at that point that I threw it away. I had planned to cross the river and go backpacking in the wilderness for a couple days, but now I had no food. I also overslept so it was already well on its way to reaching 100 degrees. So I nixed the backpacking portion of the trip and just played in the river until I was nearly starved and drove back to Columbia and back to civilization.

I think I'm going to have to get a bear canister for the next time I'm in an established campsite. I should have just put my food in the raccoon-proof trashcans. Or brought a pellet gun. At least then I could have popped the little bastards from within the comfort of my tent. I keed, I keed...

Gettin' dirty and getting wet

2007-08-20T15:15:00.000-05:00

Back in March I wrecked and totaled my Isuzu Rodeo, putting on hold any kind of off-roading adventure or random road trip. I received a court summons and an insurance check.

Three months later I bought a Jeep Wrangler and my "failure to yield" case was dismissed.

The plan was to spend as much time as possible out in the woods this summer, off-roading and looking for swimming holes with friends.

With help, I've been fairly successful. Every weekend I wasn't out of town I tried to go. My girlfriend, Carrie, went on most of these trips, though she missed the last two because she was readying her apartment for my birthday party (which was killer) and studying for comps. I always went with a full jeep -- four people or three people and a dog.

If I've got a spare seat, you're welcome to go. Just let me know you're down.

The first few trips were spent looking at maps, searching out roads that would lead to adventure. We tried every unmarked, unpaved road we thought looked promising; it took a lot of trial and error to find what we were looking for. Most unpaved roads were dead ends or private drives, which we avoided. A handful dead-ended at creeks -- not a bad thing in this heat.

There were a few solid rides, the best of which prompted Alex to say, "Grant, I think we're driving on a deer trail."

I was surprised how clean the water was in all the little tributaries, and in Cedar Creek itself. The abundance of water creatures testifies to their quality. Tons of amphibians (usually the first things to die from toxins), those little water bugs that are a good indicator (what are they called?), and there were also tons of clams and mussels. I found one clam bigger than a softball.

Click here for a PDF map of the Cedar Creek Ranger District of the Mark Twain National Forest, where we've been doing most of our playing this summer.

The last trip we took was on Wednesday, August 15, 2007. Mike, Drew, Julia (Mike's dog) and I did some pretty decent driving about in the woods in 104 degree heat, and ended the expedition with a dip in Cedar Creek.

We misplaced Julia at one point, and found her starting down at us from the top of a short bluff. She mountain-goated halfway down before getting stuck. She slipped trying to climb back up and jumped into the creek.

Mike jumped from a bit higher, and I followed.

Here's a handful of highlights from this summer. Click to embiggin or go to a gallery with more photos.

This little guy was chillin' in the creek. Can anyone identify?

On my birthday with Layla, Mark and Jake.

Play in the hay! Alex set this one up on my cooler,
propping his camera up with a stick.

This was one of Carrie's and my first forays out of town.

Class started this week, and I hope we'll be able to keep up the pace. Where will we go next?