Someone is alway giving me a hat.....some more interesting than others. These are some of my favorites. The first is a nice river running company hat. The next one is from the Stillwater Country Club - they made me a honorary member. The white one was given to me by my old football coach from Kanab - we won the State Championship in the fall of 76. The Black hat with the blue Kingfisher is the hat I've worn for ten years or more. The last two are Hawaiian hats - one from the Kaonoulu Ranch in Maui and the other is an Hawaiian DU hat - don't see one of those very often....My father, before we remodeled the office, had 385 hats hanging around the room. People would walk around, look at all the crests on the hats and comment that they knew so and so or ask where they came from or laugh at the stupid ones.

An affection for this song is about as patriotic as I get. As a teenager, for me, Yes music was as real an element of the landscape as the lakes of Northwestern Ontario and the Red Rock deserts of southern Utah. I first listened to the "Close to the Edge" and "Fragile" albums while staying with my cousins at McKenzie Lodge in Big Stone Bay on the North end of Lake of the Woods. What can I say - it was an edifying obsession for a teenager.

I keep getting requests for a fishing report..... and there are already too many fish photos in this journal, but the word on the dock is that this has been the best fishing year that anyone can remember. Paul Korsmo was in the office the other day and he said he has been coming here for over 40 years, he slept in a tent in the rain under a tree his first trip to Buena Vista, and this is the best fishing he has ever had. Avenson went all the way to bouy 12, never got lost, and had three days of wonderful fishing, the best ever. I fished the last two days with Mr. and Mrs. Glassman and they thought we caught over 100 walleyes the first day, so the second day, I brought my clicker and we counted 73 fish. The second day was more windy than the first so I'l accept that we caught over 100 the first day. Get your passport and come to Lake of the Woods.

In another younger day I could dream the time away
In the universe inside my room
And the world was really mine from June to September
And if it wasn't really so I was lucky not to know
And I was lucky not to wonder why
'cause summertime is all that I remember

Brutelage - To fish a spot over and over again until it's burned out.

Quad Hogs - To have four large fish on at the same time.

Haneypaloosa - A fishing trip that happens around the summer solstice, supplied with copious amounts of booze, cigars, music and food....esp. blueberry pie.

Taught the Olsons how to catch big walleyes the last few days and saw a strange thing. We were fishing at bouy 62 and a Starcraft pulled in with a Lavold driving it.....The weather has been fabulous.

it was like this the last few days.....the water temp. was 53 today

Yes, that is snow on the deck at the dinning room.......Saturday morning, the opening day of walleye season, it was 28 degrees and and there was a skiff of snow on the ground. By Sunday things changed - the sky was blue, temperature warmed up and we caught some walleyes and a few nice green smallmouths and lost a muskie. That's the Jackfish Savage with his first walleye of the season. The Bad News Bears have already knocked a lower unit off. We've started making Red River Bread, the big houseboats are in the lake, we have guests in the cabins and most of the water leaks are patched, but we still have some work to do.........

The ice is gone - most of the spring work is done - walleye season opens on Saturday - people have started to show up - we went out last evening and caught some northern pike - the largest two were 40 and 36 inches - the turtles are sunning themselves on the rocks...............

Looks like one more week of ice. Madea made it through the winter and still knows how to beg but is blind in one eye and can't see out the other. Shadow is back and gained a few pounds over the winter. We have remodeled another unit, are installing a floor in the restaurant, painting and cleaning - the usual spring work.

The wind howled all day today - makes one wonder if spring will come this year. The last 5 or 6 weeks have been a blur. I hiked Coyote Buttes with the Frosts then decided to drive to Santa Fe to see Benson. It was a drive I didn't want to make but a good thing I did. I visited with him for 4 days - played the guitar, read the sections from "Stone Canyons of the Colorado Plateau" on John D. Lee and the Hole in the Rock Expedition, drove to Los Cerrillos were Ben had a beer in an ancient bar with a prehistoric barmaid. I left early sunday morning and the next day Ben had a stroke and has been in a coma since then.
I came home and put a hardwood floor in the kitchen and wore myself out and caught a bug that the girls brought home from school. Then Natalie and I flew to Maui for 5 days - it was wonderful, clear ocean water as warm as bath water, except that I got sicker and sicker and by the time we flew back the flu was trying to kill me and I've been knocked out and in bed for over two weeks.

The BVR Newsletter is out there - has anyone seen it?

P.S. This was on the front page of the New York Times today....

I'll be back in a week .... and while I'm gone, something to listen to.

Climb up the glacier
Across bridges of light
We sniff you, Big Tiger
In the forest of the night
'Cause there's no escape
From the Rajahs of Erase
Better run run run
Godwhacker's on the case