Retirement Road Trip 2011: Day 13, Wednesday 9/7

0 miles, still camped at Salmon Lake State Park with Dave and Ann Wright.

The morning view out my camper door was gorgeous.

So its another warm and sunny day on Montana.  I know you're sick of hearing that, but sorry, that's the way it is.  The mornings are cool, but quickly warm.  There is a haze in the afternoon that is caused by the number of forest fires in the West.  I've seen only one small fire, but there must more around.  The fire warning signs that dot the highways all say EXTREME DANGER.

We have two things on our agenda today.  Good camp cooked food and fishing.  Breakfast was blueberry pancakes, Potsdam High School syrup, and hash brown potatoes.  Why is it that food cooked outdoors always tastes better than food cooked indoors?

The evening meal was just as good with local sweet corn on the cob and, brace yourself, Hamburger Helper Stroganoff.  By the way, lunch on the river was peanut butter and jam sandwiches, served with a side of sharp cheddar cheese and red wine.  It sure beats my 20 minute sandwich that I used to cram down for lunch when teaching.

As for the fishing, we fished the Blackfoot River.  I'll get right to the point, we were not successful.  However, the Blackfoot River is absolutely beautiful.  The scenery made up for the lack of fish.  It seems from talking to most of the locals, that you have to float the river in a raft to have the best luck fishing.  In fact, one raft pasted by us.  They said they were only having moderate luck.

The Blackfoot is the river that Norman Maclean fished as a young man and later wrote about in "A River Runs Through It."  I did a little internet research, and come to find out, Dave and I actually fished in some of the same exact locations that Maclean fished and wrote about.  When the movie was filmed, they apparently used another river for the filming.

Dave and Ann have been having trouble getting and sending email because they need wifi access.  I finally set them up with a gmail account so they can access their email anywhere using anybody's computer.  So Ann used my Mac to send out some updates.  She says Macs are going viral.  They are everywhere.  :-)

We ended the day with a small campfire.........